


! LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, t 






! UNITED STATES OF AMERICAN 



THE 



VERDICT OF SEASON 



UPON THE QUESTION OF 



THE FUTTJKE PUNISHMENT OF THOSE WHO DIE 
IMPENITENT. 



BY 
HENRY MARTYN DEXTER. 



BOSTON: 
NICHOLS AND NOYES. 

186 5. 



e>^* 



^ 



■ 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON I 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 

NICHOLS AND NOYES, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



GEO. C. KAND & AVERY, 
STEKEOTYPEKS AND PRINTERS 



CO 

© 

Q 



TO 

THE If EMBERS 



OF 

THE BERKELEY-STREET CHURCH AND CONGREGATION, 

IN 

BOSTON, 

WHOM IT IS MY JOY TO SERVE IN THE GOSPEL, 

S$s SitH* feaiis*, 

ORIGINALLY PREPARED FOR THEIR PULPIT, AND NOW REVISED AND 

REPUBLISHED, LARGELY IN THE HOPE THAT IT MAY 

BENEFIT SOME OF THEM, 

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



In the summer of 1858, certain circumstances gave 
special prominence in this community to the ques- 
tion of the reasonableness of the doctrine of the 
future eternal punishment of those who die impeni- 
tent ; and, in accordance with what he believed to 
be his duty, the author prepared, and preached to 
his own congregation, two sermons maintaining the 
affirmative of that questicfn, which, on request, were 
afterwards published. Through the favor of the 
public, they reached a wide circulation ; and the de- 
mand for them has showed itself occasionally in 
letters from distant places, asking for copies, up to 
the present time. Lately these letters have taken the 
form of a request that the sermons might be recast 
into a brief treatise, and re-issued in a form better 
suited for general circulation and for preservation ; 
a request which, in view of some of the tendencies 
of the public mind, and the feeling that no man has 
any right to withhold from the conflict of opinion 



VI INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

any agency which God seems to claim from him 
for it, it has not been thought right to decline. 

In the work of recasting, care has been taken to 
condense and clarify the argument as much as possi- 
ble in some directions, while enlarging it in others ; 
and constant reference has been had to objections 
brought against it by some who criticised it at the 
date of its first issue. 

H. M. D. 
Hillside, Roxbury, 8th May, 1865. 



ANALYSIS. 



QUESTION : Is it reasonable that God should pun- 
ish ETERNALLY THOSE WHO DIE IMPENITENT? 

CHAPTER I. Reason the ultimate Judge p. 1 

The question a reasonable one 1 

Loose use of the term Reason to be avoided 2 

Term used here to signify Common Sense, in its 

broadest and most conscientious use 2 

That Reason — so denned — is Judge, philosophi- 
cally inevitable 3 

Reason behind the Bible and the Judge of it 4 

God gave it to us to be our Guide 5 

The Scriptures take it for granted as such 6 

It must be, then, our Judge, or God has left us 

helpless 7 

CHAPTER II. The Principles on which Reason must 

decide 8 

I. Reason — while final Judge — insufficient alone. 8 

II. She decides that God may be expected to help her 

by some Revelation 9 

HI. She decides that the Bible is that Revelation of 

help 11 

She would be justified in rejecting its claim : — 

(1.) If there were no evidence of any God 13 

(2.) If his character made it most improbable 

that he would give help 13 

(3.) If man needed no revelation 13 

vn 



VIII ANALYSIS. 

(4.) If outward improbabilities overweighed the 

inward probability of the Bible 13 

(5.) Or, the reverse : — 

(a.) If it made no real revelation 14 

(b.) If it were a weak and silly volume. . . , . , 14 

(c.) If it were self-contradictory 15 

(d.) If it contradicted facts obvious to sense.. 15 

(e.) If it contradicted natural morality 15 

Illustration from the Ocean Telegraph 16 

Great liability of misjudgment from imperfect 

information 19 

Philosophical to believe, on eternal subjects, 
even in the face of great difficulties, when 
they are due to the imperfection of our fac- 
ulties 19 

Judgment of Sir Matthew Hale 20 

Judgment of M'Cosh 21 

IV. Having accepted the Bible, Reason decides it rea- 
sonable to make it her guide, when interpreted 
on sound principles. But what are sound prin- 
ciples ? 21 

A. We must take the whole of it or none 22 

(a.) The evidence for any of it is evidence 

for all 23 

(b.) A semi-revelation would need another to 
supplement it, and another to supple- 
ment that, and so on ad infinitum 24 

B. It must be interpreted by the laws of language 

honestly, honorably, and without artifice to 
suit a theory 25 

C. It must be so interpreted as to be self-consist- 

ent 27 

D. The most obvious meaning — other things being 

equal — the probable one. 27 

E. It must be interpreted as a progressive revela- 

tion « 28 

F. It should be interpreted naturally, and from the 

position of its own speakers and audiences. . . 29 

G. Yet, with all, we can not — with our finite minds 

at their present stage of development — ex- 



ANALYSIS. IX 

pect to understand it all; perhaps, indeed, 

Utile of it fully 30 

Elustration from the child and the telegraph 
wire 30 

H. Of two possible meanings, that likeliest to be 
true which has most commended itself to the 

Christian experience of the past 31 

Not necessarily of " the Church " 33 

God's promise to lead his people into all 
truth must have left traces in the exegesis 

of the past 33 

I. Of two possible meanings of a text, that is often 
probably truest which is least tasteful to us. . . 33 

Medicine apt to be bitter 34 

Sin apt to be hostile to its own correctives . . 34 
J. Of two possible meanings that is most reasona- 

able which is safest for man 34 

Objected. (1.) Proves too much and would 

make Romanists of us 36 

Ans. : Not unless the claim of Rome 
is valid, and if it is we ought 

to go to it in any event 3£ 

(2.) To make safety a considera- 
tion is cowardly and dishon- 
orable, and would have 
made a man a tory in the 
Revolution, and a copper- 
head now 36 

Ans. : This begs the question in dis- 
pute, besides ignoring the 
distinction between safety 
as a principle of exegesis, 

and as a rule of life 36 

Safety for men is the animus 
of the Gospel, and so is le- 
gitimate as interpreting its 

records 37 

These objectors consult safe- 
ty in daily matters, and 
have no fear of its being 
" selfishness," or cowardice. 37 
Summary of the argument thus far 38 



X ANALYSIS. 

CHAPTER III. The Testimony of the Old Testament — 40 

God's word to Adam, (Gen. ii. 17), the corner stone 
of the fabric 41 

Means more than prophecy of death 41 

Means more than threat of death 41 

Means more than mere emphasis 42 

It projects a mysterious menace over into the fu- 
ture 44 

This corner stone not immediately built upon 
because of the too great immaturity of the race 

at that time 45 

Objection: If future punishment be true, God 
ought to have revealed it so that Adam and all 
men could have understood it, from the first. . 46 

Ans. : (1.) It was revealed sufficiently 47 

(2.) If it could have been miraculously 
made clearer there would be no gain 
to the believer, and more loss to the 

denier 47 

(3.) In any event guilt and light are pro- 
portionate 47 

Illustration, in regard to deadly poison 47 

The Jews believed in the immortality of the soul 48 
The testimony of Moses, Enoch, Jacob and Job . 48 
The Psalmist speaks more clearly of separation 

between the righteous and the wicked 49 

Testimony from Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, 

Ezekiel, Nahum and Daniel 49^ 

History of the word sheol as illustrating the pro- 
gress of the Hebrew mind in this doctrine 52 

Testimony of Josephus, Jahn, the Rabbis, and 
the Apocrypha, that the Jews at the date of 
Christ's coming actually did believe in the fu- 
ture punishment of the wicked 53 

Objection : That the Jews got this from Alexan- 
dria, and not from the Old Testa- 
ment 56 

Ans. : Alexandria was not built until hundreds 
of years after the doctrine asserts itself 
clearly in the Old Testament. Easier to 
prove Alexandria indebted to Judea, 
than the contrary 66 



ANALYSIS. XI 

The actual teaching of the Old Testament, then, 
would seem to have made the Jews believers in 
future punishment 57 

The fact that they were so when Christ came, 
though it does not demonstrate the doctrine, nor 
prove that they got it from their Scriptures, 
hightens the probability of both, and is of the 
greatest consequence in the interpretation of 
Christ's own teaching 58 

CHAPTER IV. The Testimony of Christ 59 

Objection : Christ's words were too fragmentary and 
poetical to bear rigid classification into 

doctrine 59 

Ans. : Granted (for argument's sake), still he did 
teach something, and knew the bearing of 

it upon the facts 59 

These things must be true : — 
(1.) Christ knew that the Jews believed future 

punishment 60 

(2.) He was himself a Universalist, or an oppo- 
nent of its faith 60 

(3.) He knew that the truth on this subject was 
of great consequence, and must have had 
an earnest desire that all should know it. . 60 
(4.) For him to say nothing, then, would be to 

endorse the doctrine 60 

(5.) To have spoken casually of it without con- 
demnation, would endorse it 61 

(6.) His direct utterance must be taken to its full- 
est extent as endorsement if favorable in 
any particular, and unfavorable in none. . 61 
Illustration : of one lecturing on political economy 
in Charleston, S. C, since the Rebel- 
lion 61 

If Christ were a Universalist, we shall find him 

teaching like one 62 

Follow his recorded words in their order of utter- 
ance and see 62 

Conversation with Nicodemus 62 

Interview with the woman at Jacob's well 63 



XII ANALYSIS. 

At the pool of Bethesda 64 

Sermon on the Mount 65 

Healing of the Centurion's servant 66 

Upbraiding the cities 67 

Healing the demoniac 67 

Dining with the Pharisee 67 

Parable of the tares and its interpretation 68 

Parable of the net 68 

Sending out of the Apostles 69 

Discourse at Capernaum — the " hard saying " . . 69 
What is a man profited to gain the world and lose 

the soul? 70 

Who shall be greatest ? 70 

' Sending forth the seventy 71 

Keproving the unbelieving Jews at Jerusalem. . 71 

" Lord ! are there few that be saved ? " 71 

Parable of Lazarus, &c 72 

The rich young man 72 

The parable of the wicked husbandman 73 

Denouncing the Pharisees 73 

Prediction of the judgment 73 

Everlasting punishment 74 

AttovLog 74 

Before Gethsemane 75 

On the way to the cross 76 

After the resurrection — the last command 76 

John's summary 76 

All these are anti-Universalist words ; every one.. 77 
Only way to avoid the conclusion that Christ op- 
posed Universalism is to deny that the New Tes- 
tament is to be depended upon as fairly reporting 

him . w 77 

Affirmations of Theodore Parker to that affect. . 77 

Equivalent conclusion of Rev. Thos. Starr King. 78 

Similar averment of M. Renan 79 

The New Testament settles it, then, that Christ 
shared and advocated the doctrine, which he 

found in the nation , of future eternal punishment. 80 



ANALYSIS, XIII 

CHAPTER V. The Testimony of the Apostles , 81 

Stream is not expected to rise higher than its 

fountain 81 

Great burden of Apostolic Christianity, salva- 
tion for the lost 82 

Peter at Pentecost 82 

Healing of the lame man 82 

Peter to the Sanhedrim 82 

To Cornelius 82 

Paul at Antioch in Pisidia 82 

Paul to the Galatians 83 

To the Thessalonians 83 

To the Corinthians 84 

To the Romans 84 

To the Ephesians 86 

To the Philippians. 86 

To the Hebrews 86 

Peter, in his Epistle 87 

James, in his 87 

Jude, in his . . . . 87 

John, in the Apocalypse 88 

CHAPTER VI. The more indirect Testimonies of the 

Bible 89 

If the Bible really teaches the future punishment 
of the wicked, it must show it indirectly in a 
thousand ways of allusion and inference — a form 

of proof of great value ... 90 

Does it do this, or does it similarly teach Univer- 
salism ? Let us examine a few classes of passa- 
ges. We shall find affirmations like these : — 

1. Some men will be excluded from the king- 

dom of God 90 

2. Some will never possess holiness 90 

3. Some never will see life 91 

4. Some die without any hope 91 

5. ^§ome have no forgiveness 91 

6. For some the atonement will not avail. ... 91 

7. The atonement will aggravate the condem- 

• nation of some 91 

8. The state of the dead will be unalterably 

fixed...., 91 



XIV ANALYSIS. 



9. God permanently angry with some 92 

10. Men are in danger of going where no pray- 

er nor entreaties avail 92 

11. Some men do perish 92 

12. Some will not be saved 92 

13. The wicked are in danger of going into 

a remediless state 98 

14. Great danger that men will fail of heaven. 93 

15. Danger of the misuse of probation 93 

16. Hope of the bad man will be disappointed. 93 

17. Punishment threatened to those who teach 

no future retribution 94 

18. A fatal contingency always hanging over 

the sinner 94 

19. Destruction foretold as the end of the 

wicked 94 

20. The death of the soul the doom of the im- 

penitent 95 

21. Foretelling of a second death 95 

22. Coming wrath predicted to the impenitent. 95 

23. Some become apostates and are cast off 

for ever 95 

24. Wicked men shall be cut off 96 

25. A curse is denounced on sinners 96 

26. Those who resist and neglect the gospel 

threatened 96 

27. Men pleaded with to repent, that they may 

not die 97 

28. The Gospel declared the remedy against 

eternal death 97 

29. Admittance to Heaven on conditions often 

obviously unfulfilled 98 

30. Those guilty of the works of the flesh can 

not be saved 98 

31. The unfaithfulness of Christians, in dan- 

ger of being death to sinners 99 

32. Christian faithfulness^ aves souls from 

death 99 

33. Believers make a good exchange in suffer- 

ing here for the sake of heaven 99 

34. Perseverance essential to salvation 100 



ANALYSIS. XV 

35. Some men have been lost — beyond a 

doubt 100 

36. Righteous approve the eternal punishment 

of the lost 101 

37. God is glorified by the eternal punishment 

of the lost , 101 

38. There is a resurrection of the unjust 102 

39. Worldly prosperity imperils the immortal 

interests 102 

40. Danger of self-deception 102 

41. Love of the world fatal to salvation.. 103 

42. Unbelief fatal to salvation 103 

43. Judgment is denounced upon certain gross 

offenders 103 

44. Repentance is a condition of salvation. . . . 103 

45. So is faith 104 

46. So is love to Christ and the truth 104 

47. The incorrigibly wicked keep on growing 

worse and worse. 105 

48. Danger that the Devil will deceive souls to 

perdition 105 

49. Salvation to be gained only by continual 

vigilance against him 105 

50. The very essence of the Gospel is to give 

everlasting life to believers 106 

All these (1.) Do not assert directly the doctrine. 107 

(2.) Might not compel us to believe it in 

the absence of direct testimony. . 107 

(3.) But they fall in with it most natur- 
ally, if it be true 107 

(4.) Are just such as we should expect 

if it be true 107 

(5.) Are quite inexplicable if it be not 

true 107 

(6.) Coming from so many portions of 
the Word, and uncontradicted by 
others of opposite character, they 
are incompatible with any other 
theory than that the Bible is inco- 
herent or the doctrine is true; the 
latter the reasonable alternative . . 107 



xyi ANALYSIS, 

The indirect evidence of the Bible does then affirm 

the future punishment of the wicked 107 

Summary of the argument from the Scriptures 109 

CHAPTER VII. There is no reasonable objection to 

THIS TESTIMONY WHICH HAS FORCE TO 
MODIFY IT 113 

It is objected : — 

I. That the Bible does not really teach the doctrine, 

after all 114 

(1.) Because the texts quoted do not fairly im- 
ply it J14 

(a.) The word "perish" does not imply 

eternal death 114 

(b.) Nor the phrases "kingdom of God," 

and " kingdom of heaven," &c 116 

(c.) Nor the words " damn," " damnation," 

&c 117 

(d.) Nor the words " save," " salvation," &e. 119 
(e.) Nor the words "sheol," "Gehenna," 

&c... 121 

But (i.) Gehenna did mean that to 

the Jews when Christ came . . 122 
(ii.) Christ used it so that he knew 
he should be understood in 

that sense 123 

(f.) Nor the words " eternal," " everlasting," 

" for ever," &c 125 

(2.) Because, even if these texts do teach it, there 

are others that contradict it 127 

II. But, even if the Bible does teach the doctrine, 

it is objected that it is impossible for us to be- 
lieve it, because it is overruled by other con- 
trolling considerations 129 

(1.) Men can not believe it and live in any peace. 
But God has shielded the sensitiveness of 
the soul; and men do live in the same 
world with awful suffering, and live in 

peace 129 

Besides, God's justice is administered in in- 



ANALYSIS, xvn 

finite kindness ; and he does just right with 

all 131 

(2.) The end of all punishment is restorative, and 
so future eternal punishment can not be 

true 132 

But this is pure assumption 132 

(3.) Eternal future punishment would be unjust, 

and so can not be true 133 

But (a.) Is this true ? 133 

(i.) We can not know that it is 133 

(ii.) Sin expresses disposition, and one 
sin may reveal a heart of mur- 
der 134 

(iii.) If a sinner will not repent, and dies, 
and persists in sinning for ever, 
what shall be done with him?.. 135 
(b.) It is urged, that, even if future pun- 
ishment can be abstractly just, it 
can not be concretely so for men ; 
for they have not been duly notified 

of their danger 136 

But all who have the Bible are " du- 
ly notified; " and the Heathen (i.) 
have the light of nature, which Paul 
says puts them " without excuse,' * 
and (ii.) are in the hands of infinite 
justice administered with infinite 

kindness 136 

(4.) It is said that there will be future probation. 137 

(a.) No evidence of any 138 

(b.) Such a probation would be needless 

and unreasonable 138 

(c.) There is no probability that men would 
repent in a second probation who had 

resisted the first 138 

(d.) Such a theory makes no provision for 

the obdurate 139 

(e.) The Bible asserts the absolute contrary. 139 
(5.) It is said that the wicked will be annihilat- 
ed 140 

(a.) If this were true, it would be worst of all. 140 
2 



XVIXI ANALYSIS. 

(b.) It is doubtful if a soul can cease to live. . 140 
(c.) All the evidence that souls exist proves I 

them immortal 140 

(d.) No evidence that death does more than 

transfer 140 

(e.) We have an instinct of immortality 141 

(f.) Conscience argues eternal life 141 

(g.) God's moral government requires it 141 

(h.) No evidence from the Bible of any dis- 
crimination as to the fact of future life, 

between men 141 

(i.) All texts which assert future punishment 
imply its infliction on conscious suffer- 
ers . . , 141 

Testimony of Prof. Barrows 142 

(6.) It is said God is too good to punish men for 

ever, no matter what they do 142 

But (a.) facts show that this kind of reasoning 

is unsafe 143 

It would have made Fort Pillow and 

Andersonville impossible 144 

(b. ) Severity is one center in the ellipse of 
God's nature, while goodness is the 

other 145 

(c.) The only safe course is to inquire of 

the Bible 147 

These arguments, then, amount to noth- 
ing 150 

There is no valid objection of any sort 
against the doctrine ...... 151 

CHAPTER VIII. Summing up of the Argument 152 

(1.) Reason is first and final arbiter 152 

(2.) She decides that she needs help 152 

(3.) She decides that she may expect it from God. 152 
(4.) She decides that the Bible brings that help. . . 152 
(5.) She decides that it is reasonable for her to 

take its testimony fairly rendered 152 

(6.) She decides on the conditions of a fair render- 
ing 152 



ANALYSIS. XIX 

(7.) She decides that, on those conditions, it does 
reveal the fact that the impenitent will be 

punished for ever 153 

(8.) She decides that no valid objection lies against 

this view 153 

(9.) Therefore she decides that the doctrine of the 
future endless punishment of those who die im- 
penitent is in the highest degree one reason- 
ably to be believed 153 

Is it not wise to accept this result ? 154 

Is it not safest to do so ? 154 

A consistent Universalist can not believe the Bible. 155 
So Theodore Parker and Thomas Paine taught, and 

so, one day, all will judge 155 

Let us, then, follow Reason and the Word, and re- 
pent and believe and live 156 



VEEDICT OF EEASON. 



CHAPTER I. 

REASON THE ULTIMATE JUDGE. 

THE question before us for consideration is this : Is it 
reasonable that Grod should punish eternally those 
who persist in sin and die impenitent? 

I wish to be understood, in the outset, as admitting 
that this is a perfectly fair question, and one which every 
man not merely has a right to ask, but is bound to ask. 
I do not sympathize at all with those who have spoken 
from among us, who have, sometimes at least, seemed to 
decry reason as a dangerous arbiter in matters of religion ; 
and who have been understood — whether with full inten- 
tion on their own part or not — to take substantially the 
ground, that, no matter how unreasonable a thing may 
be, men are still bound to believe it if the Bible seems to 
assert it. 

I hold, on the contrary, as Lord Bacon says, that " the 
first principle of religion is right reason." I believe that 
God gave u& our human intelligence — that aggregate of 



2 VERDICT OF REASON. 

mental and moral powers which distinguishes us from the 
bruteSj the natural and healthy working of which we are 
accustomed to call "the exercise of our common sense" — 
in order that we may use it in the acquisition, criticism, 
and acceptance of all truth. I believe, that, as sentient 
and immortal beings, we are solemnly bound to receive 
and incorporate into our life every thing which it indorses 
as truth. I believe, on the other hand, that we are as 
solemnly bound to reject from our faith and life every 
thing which, after thorough and honest scrutiny, it con- 
demns as false. 

Be pleased however to notice, in this connection, the 
fact that a loose and narrower usage of the word " reason " 
has sometimes prevailed among writers on this subject, 
which would vitiate my proposition. Such is that of that 
German school of philosophy which appropriates the term 
to those intuitional conceptions which the mind has of the 
true, the beautiful, and the good. In that transcendental 
use of the term, reason would be very far from being the 
ultimate — as it would fall utterly short of being a safe — 
arbiter of religious questions ; since it would substitute 
what is practically undistinguishable from the fervid or 
morbid dreams of the imagination, working alone, for those 
calm decisions of the grouped and balanced faculties which 
furnish the only secure data of life, whether considered in 
its relations to the here or the hereafter. 

That reason — thus defined as common sense in its 



REASON THE ULTIMATE JUDGE. 3 

broadest and most conscientious use — is for every man the 
ultimate judge on all subjects, and so on religious subjects, 
will be made clear from the consideration of the fact, that, 
by the very constitution of the human soul, it cannot be 
otherwise. 

It is a matter of coux^se that his own reason must be 
itself the arbiter for every man, or that something else must 
be that arbiter. 

But if something else, then what ? Shall it be the dic- 
tum of another man, or of some other being less than God, 
or of God ? If of another man, by what authority ? and 
if of any other created being, or of God, on what evidence ? 
What shall decide that any communication purporting to 
bring wisdom and judgment from any superior source, 
whether angelic or divine, is really what it purports to be, 
and not a fallacy or a fraud ? 

The only practicable source of answer to these questions 
is for the man himself to decide. He must say, " My fel- 
low-man, or some superhuman agent, or the Divine Being, 
knows more than I do about this matter, and has spoken ; 
and it is safer for me to trust him than to trust myself; 
and I am satisfied, on scrutiny, that this communica- 
tion is really from him from whom it purports to come, and 
therefore I shall receive it and act upon it." He must 
say this, or its opposite, in regard to every such claim from 
any source to set up a tribunal over him ; must say it, and 
act accordingly. 



4 VERDICT OF REASON, 

But that speech, and the decision which it enshrines, is 
nothing less than a judgment upon that claim to judge ; 
and, in judging it, the man erects himself into a tribunal of 
last resort above it : so that, if it gets power over his own 
future, it is only in virtue of the fact that in judging thus 
he has given to it that power. So that his reason remains 
the ultimate arbiter, after all. 

This makes it clear that Grod has so constituted every 
man monarch of himself, that he cannot, if he would, abdi- 
cate the function of being the judge of what is best for 
himself; cannot, if he would, disenthrone himself of this 
imperial task and responsibility. 

"But," asks somebody who has been accustomed to 
hear it spoken of as a fearful, and fearfully common, 
thing for men to set reason above revelation, " is not the 
Bible to be received in every event ? Is not whatever it 
teaches to be implicitly accepted, and acted upon, however 
much reason may object against it ? " 

I answer, — 

1. We do not know that we need any revelation at all, 
except as reason so declares. 

2. And when that fact has been determined, and we 
look around for a supply for our asserted need, it is only 
by reason that we can identify our Bible, and settle it, 
whether we ought to take the Sibylline leaves of the Ro- 
mans, or the Shasters of the Hindus, or the Arabic Koran, 
or the Book of Mormon, or the Christian Scriptures, for 



REASON THE ULTIMATE JUDGE. 5 

our guide. And if the Christian Scriptures had the qual- 
ities of the Koran, and the Koran the qualities of the Chris- 
tian Scriptures, we should be compelled by reason to reject 
the Old and New Testaments, and accept the oracles of 
Mahomet ; on the ground that the latter, rather than the 
former, came from a compassionating holy God to needy and 
sinful man. 

But if Reason must thus decide whether we need any 
revelation at all, and, if we do, must further decide between 
the conflicting claims upon our acceptance of different and 
incompatible volumes, each affirming itself to be that reve- 
lation, it becomes clear, that, in this radically important 
sense, it is inevitable to that constitution of things which 
God has given us, that Reason should be our ultimate judge 
in all matters of religious truth. It is the faculty which 
God has created in us to be our guide to himself. He 
gave us eyes with which to see, and ears with which to 
hear, and the whole group of the senses to put us into com- 
munication with external nature, and notify us of those 
facts appertaining to it, in view of which our life ought to 
be shaped. So he gave us intellect and sensibility, and con- 
science and will, that, from their co-working in ' ' good com- 
mon sense," we might be put rightly into relation with the 
moral and spiritual world, with time and eternity. And 
as we should displease God if we were to neglect or misuse 
the senses to our own disaster, so, by an emphasis gather- 
ing force from the infinite issues involved, should we (lis- 



b VERDICT OF REASON. 

please him if we were to dethrone Reason in order to set 
up any other tribunal of moral and spiritual duty. 

The Bible everywhere conforms to and recognizes this 
view. Abraham, pleading for Sodom, referred to the stan- 
dard of right and wrong existing in the common sense of the 
race, — implanted there by God himself as the countersign 
by which men may surely recognize him and his works, 
- — and reasoned on the assumption that he who had or- 
dained such a tribunal would not desecrate or do violence 
to it, when he said, " That be far from thee to do after this 
manner, to slay, the righteous with the wicked ; and that 
the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from 
thee : shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? " 1 And 
God, by his tone of reply, approved the view which the 
patriarch took. Isaiah was directed by the Lord to appeal 
to this same standard : " And now, inhabitants of Jeru- 
salem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me 
and my vineyard : what could have been done more to my 
vineyard that I have not done in it ? Wherefore, when I 
looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth 
wild grapes? " 2 So the 18th and the 83d chapters of the 
prophecy of Ezekiel are mainly the record of an argument 
addressed to the Jews by the prophet, at God's command 
and dictation, making appeal before this very tribunal of 
right reason and sound common sense, which he had set up 
in the human breast, in proof of his own righteousness, and 

l Gen. xviii. 25. 2 L? a . v. 3, 4. 



REASON THE ULTIMATE JUDGE. 7 

of the sin of Israel, summing up the whole by claiming 
a verdict from that tribunal for himself and against them : 
"Are not my ways equal, and are not your ways unequal, 
saith the Lord ? ' ' Paul cannot refer to any thing other 
than this arbiter, when he declares, in the 2d of Romans, 
that men " are a law unto themselves, which show the work 
of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also 
bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accus- 
ing or else excusing one another." And to this judg- 
ment-seat Christ himself appeals, when, in the 12th of 
Luke, he says, " Why, even of yourselves, judge ye not 
what is right?" 

There can, then, be no sound rational or scriptural ar- 
gument upon the relations of man to God, which does not 
rest upon this fundamental truth, that Reason — as I have 
explained the term — is the ultimate judge of what is true . 
Either this must be so, or God has made it impossible for 
us securely to distinguish truth from falsehood, and left us 
to drift helpless upon the eternal ocean. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH REASON MUST DECIDE. 

A TRUE decision from Reason must be a reasonable 
decision ; and a reasonable decision is one founded 
upon reasons ; and a decision founded upon reasons must 
be one in which the facts of the given case, claiming judg- 
ment, are referred to, and compared with the great princi- 
ples of right, their aspects toward those principles noted, 
and so the decision made up upon those aspects. If 
Reason is to tell us whether those who die impenitent will 
be eternally lost, or not, she must do it by bringing that 
question to the test of all the self-evident principles within 
her purview which bear upon it. The first step toward an 
answer to that question, then, becomes the identification 
and clear statement of those principles. To this work I 
now advance. 

I. The first principle is, that while Reason recog- 
nizes herself as the final judge, with reference to the 
reception, by the mind, of any thing that claims to he 
religious truth, she is yet incompetent, without help, to 
conduct that mind to all that religious truth which it is 
needful for man to know. 

8 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 9 

This is because she sees that she cannot see all that is 
essential to human safety and happiness. She is conscious 
of immense reaches of truth spreading far, on every side, 
beyond the circle of the horizon that shuts her in ; and 
though so far that she cannot know them, nor solve the 
problems which they present, they are not so far but she 
can see that those problems must have important reference 
to human well being. She therefore craves help. She 
looks around for it. Specially does she this when the 
question turns toward the future world. She knows, that, 
though all men may guess, no man of himself can know 
any thing concerning that which lies beyond the grave. 
She cannot believe that this life is to be all of human life ; 
yet, unassisted, she has nothing which she can make 
the basis of any secure decision with regard to any life to 
come. Distressed thus with her own essential incompe- 
tency to decide for man some of the most important ques- 
tions that cluster about his life, reason looks around for 
help. She decides it to be most improbable that that great 
and wise and good Being, whom she discerns at the helm 
of the universe, should leave his creatures in the dark, 
where light is so essential to their welfare ; and this leads 
her to the enunciation of a second principle, in her judg- 
ment on this subject ; namely : — 

II. Reason decides, that since, alone, she cannot solve 
the gravest questions of human destiny, it is both neces- 
sary that God should, and probable that he will, make up 



10 VERDICT OF REASON. 

this deficiency in her data of knowledge by a revelation 
to her of those facts which must otherwise remain beyond 
her reach. 

In the judgment of Season, it is incredible that such a 
Being as she readily perceives God, in his works of crea- 
tion and providence, to reveal himself to be, should permit 
that creature of his, for whose development he shaped, 
subordinately, all material things, and in whose well or ill 
being and doing the problem of the success or failure of 
universe must find its resolution, to remain permanently 
destitute of any knowledge, the possession of which is 
essential to his welfare. Feeling, therefore, that there is 
much knowledge in regard to this world, and every thing 
in regard to what comes after this world, which lies beyond 
the research of the unassisted human powers, yet is im- 
perative to human prosperity and happiness, Reason decides 
that it is to be expected that God will make a revelation of 
this needful, but otherwise impossible, knowledge. To 
suppose that he will not reveal it, under these circumstan- 
ces, is to suppose that he does not know that men need it, 
or does not wish men to possess it. To suppose that he is 
not conscious of our great want, is to suppose that he is 
not 'God ; and to suppose that he does not wish men to 
possess all knowledge needful to make them perfect, is to 
suppose that he does not wish them to become perfect as 
He is perfect, — conclusions which Reason cannot accept, 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 11 

especially in the face of the opposite teachings of a volume 
asserting itself to contain such a revelation from God. 

This leads to the enunciation of the next principle which 
bears upon the matter before us ; namely : — - 

XII. When her attention is called to the Bible, and 
she has examined its claims, ^Reason decides that God 
has spoken in it, and that its unfolding s are to be received 
as an authentic revelation to man of the particulars of 
that knowledge ivhich he needs to know; could not 
know without it; can know with it. 

There are four great considerations which bring sound 
human reason to this decision in regard to the Bible. One 
is its thorough cognizance of the fact, that man needs a 
revelation of truth which he otherwise has no means of 
knowing. The second is its apprehension of the fact, that 
the Bible does actually make just that revelation of 
truth which man needed to receive, and looked for else- 
where in vain. The third is its discovery, that there is 
nothing in the Bible inconsistent with its claims to be such 
a revelation. The fourth is the assurance which it has, 
that the manner in which this revelation has been made 
and authenticated to the race is such that there is no rea- 
son to doubt, but every reason to believe, that it is indeed 
what it professes to be, and inwardly appears to be, — a 
divine revelation. 

This process of establishing belief in the authenticity of 
the Bible resembles that which satisfies the absent child of 



12 VERDICT OF REASON. 

the genuineness of the letter which he gets from his father 
at home. He needed some money, and some advice in re- 
gard to his future course. He knows that his father knows 
his need. The letter contains that money and that advice. 
And further, the handwriting, postmark, style, incidental 
allusions, all things, are such as they ought to be, if the 
letter did come, as it professes to come, from his father fo 
him. So of man's need of the Bible, — its adaptedness to 
supply that need, and the natural fitness of its incidental 
circumstances. Satisfied on all these points, Reason says 
it is from God ; it has come to supply the knowledge that 
we lacked ; it is reasonable for us to receive its declara- 
tions, and make them the basis and guide of life, — even 
though they should, in some particulars, be obscure, or 
even very different from our anticipation. 

But here some one may object. You are craftily beg- 
ging the very question in dispute. You now assume that 
Reason will accept the Bible as a revelation from God, 
even though it reveal the future punishment of the wicked ; 
while the very point at issue is, whether the doctrine be 
not in itself so unreasonable, that men cannot and ought 
not to believe it, however revealed, and therefore cannot 
and ought not to receive, as from God, any book that 
should reveal it, — on your own admission that Reason is 
final judge. 

I reply, Reason is final judge, and there are good grounds 
on which it might consistently reject the Bible as assuming 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 13 

to be a revelation from God ; but the fact that it reveals the 
future punishment of the wicked, if it be a fact, is not 
one of them. The whole matter hinges on this inquiry : 
What would justify Eeason in rejecting the Bible as from 
God ? I think there are five grounds, on either of which 
Reason would be justified in rejecting the claims of the 
Bible. 

(1.) If there were no evidence of the existence of any 
God, then it would be absurd to receive any volume as his 
message to us. 

(2.) If God's character was manifestly such as to make 
it in the highest degree improbable that he should make 
any revelation to man, then it would be in the highest 
degree improbable that any volume should be his message 
to us. 

(3.) Or if man clearly needed no revelation; if he 
had knowledge enough of all kinds without one, so as to 
be just as well off in the absence of. any Bible as in its 
presence ; then it would be absurd to suppose that any vol- 
ume contained such a needless message from God. 

(4.) Or if the Bible were encompassed with outward 
improbabilities sufficient to much more than outweigh any 
inward probabilities which it contains that it is a revela- 
tion from God, then it would be absurd to receive it as 
such. As, for example, if it were susceptible of demon- 
stration that the books of the Bible were written centuries 
after the date claimed by them, and by other persons than 



14 VERDICT OF REASON. 

their reputed authors ; or if it were notorious that the in- 
dividuals who first put them in circulation were bad men 
and public deceivers ; or if different copies and versions 
varied so widely as to render it hopeless to get any consis- 
tent and reliable record ; or if it was clear that the book 
had been practically injurious wherever it had gone ; then 
Reason would be justified in denying that it came from 
God. 

(5.) Or, once more, if the Bible were inwardly so im- 
probable as to overbalance all outward probabilities of its 
divine origin, then Reason would do right to decline to re- 
ceive it as from God. 

There are five inward improbabilities which I can im- 
agine, either of which, to my mind, would justify Reason 
in the rejection of the Bible, no matter what might be the 
outward evidence, provided Reason could feel certain that 
she had possession of all the related facts as a basis for 
judgment. 

(a.) If it really made no revelation ; told us nothing 
that we needed to know, — nothing that we did not know 
before, — then it must be absurd to imagine that God 
sent it here. For this reason, I reject the pretended reve- 
lations of Spiritualism. I have never seen any sufficient 
evidence of its telling us any thing of the least value that 
we did not know before. 

(b.) If it were a weak and silly volume, I should re- 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 15 

ject the Bible, as fatally lacking the necessary dignity of 
inspiration. 

(c.) If it were a self-contradictory volume, I should 
reject the Bible ; for, if one-half its books neutralized the 
other half, if all sorts of conflicting assertions were made 
by it, we should say at once the book is not merely useless, 
but impossible to come from a God of truth. 

(d.) So, if the Bible contradicted facts obvious to sense ; 
if it said the moon shines by clay, and the sun by night ; that 
the earth is flat ; that the sea is solid ; that men are quad- 
rupeds, or any thing else thoroughly irreconcilable with our 
consciousness of realities around us, — our reason would be 
obliged to reject it as a voice from God, whom we cannot 
help believing to know and to speak that which is true. 

(e.) So, once more, if the Bible clearly contradicted 
the first principles of natural morality, my reason would 
reject it; because I cannot help believing that my con- 
victions of right and wrong were given me by God himself, 
that I may use them in judging what is right in him as 
well as myself; what is right in any thing purporting to 
be his Word, as well as in the words and acts of my fellow- 
man. And it would be absurd for me to believe that any 
revelation which God should make in a book can contra- 
dict that previous revelation of right which he has implant- 
ed in my breast, on purpose that I may have some standard 
by which to receive or reject any document subsequently 
purporting to come from him. It is much as if a king 



16 VERDICT OF REASON. 

should send an ambassador to a distant court that is sur- 
rounded by hostile influences, and puts into his hands the 
key of an intricate cipher in which all his official despatches 
will be written. Now, this ambassador may receive many 
false messages from enemies who have intercepted the true 
letters of the king, and who have tried to mislead him by 
their own deceptive ones : but he always has the means of 
verification ; and, so long as he rejects every thing which 
his key will not unlock, he acts reasonably and safely. So 
conscience, and our innate sense of right, are our key by 
which to test every thing which claims to be revelation ; 
and all which it will not apply to we shall be safe to reject. 
But, as I said, we must he sure that we thoroughly under- 
stand the subject that we reject ; that we have all the facts 
which ought to come into the case ; and that the apparent 
discrepancy between it and natural morality is a real 
one, and is not the unavoidable consequence of want of 
information on our part. 

Suppose, when the " London Times' 9 announced, on the 
17th of July, 1858, the departure from Queenstown of the 
fleet on its mission to connect the shores of the Old World 
and the New with an ocean telegraph, a copy of it should 
have struggled over distant seas to some remote land where 
dwelt a man of science who had never heard of the prop- 
osition to lay down such a telegraph cable, or of those 
wonderful modern advances in the science of electro-mag- 
netism which make such a work possible : the question is, 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 17 

what posture of mind would be reasonable in him concern- 
ing this intelligence. If the ' ' Times ' ' stated that those ships 
had started to lay down a chain cable, or a cotton cod-line, 
for that distance and that purpose, clearly he would be justi- 
fied in saying at once, ' ' The rumor is false ; the thing is 
incredible ! A chain cable would cost more than any sane 
nations would pay for such use ; would be more cumbrous 
that any fleet could manage in the transit, and would be 
worth absolutely nothing for the purpose desired when 
down. And a cotton cod-line could carry no electricity, 
nor would it bear the strain of trailing for the first half- 
mile. Therefore the rumor must be false : my knowledge 
of science is sufficient to warrant me in rejecting the idea as 
utterly absurd. 

But suppose the statement is, that they are carrying 
over a little rope of twisted wire covered with insulating 
and protecting material, as was the fact, and he should 
then say : It must be false ; the thing is incredible ; my 
knowledge of science assures me that it is impossible to 
make electricity work over so immense a space ; and two 
sensible nations would never attempt an impossibility, — 
the question would be, is he acting now as reasonably as 
before ? 

Before, he was sure he was in possession of all the fttcts 
needful to a correct judgment ; but is he sure now ? Does 
he not, from want of information, for which he is not to be 
blamed, overlook the very facts which are most of all 



18 VERDICT OF REASON. 

necessary to the formation of a correct judgment in the 
matter, — the facts, that experiments of which he never 
heard, and of a character quite new and surpising, have 
convinced those having the thing in charge, that ( by the 
use of a machine of which he never even dreamed) there is 
such assurance of success as to make the attempt in the 
highest degree reasonable ? Is it not clear, that, under all 
the circumstances, the truly wise and rational course would 
be for him to say : This matter is very strange ; I had 
always supposed it to be impossible to manage the electric 
fluid to any purpose under conditions of so great difficulty, 
and I am aware of no machine by which it could be made 
to carry messages across the Atlantic. At first thought, 
the idea seems incredible ; and yet it never becomes the 
man of science to say of any thing that is difficult, it is im- 
possible, because it is difficult ; and since the rumor comes 
through a channel every way reliable, and even in the col- 
umns of a copy of the "London Times," I will suspend my 
judgment concerning the subject long enough, at least, to 
read the whole article announcing it, and not say, point 
blank, that it cannot be a copy of the " Times," because it 
contains this rumor. It may after all turn out, that, from 
want of knowledge, I have omitted some essential fact that 
would explain the whole. And yet, on the face of it, it 
does still seem incredible. 

It will, I take it, be readily granted on all hands, that 
this would be sound sense in the case supposed ; and I 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 19 

submit that it indicates to us what is sound sense in regard 
to all questions touching the acceptance or rejection of the 
Bible as God's Word, because of some apparent conflict 
of its teachings with natural morality. If it gravely told 
us, that God will lie, or, that it would be right for God to 
lie; if it said, " Thou shalt steal," "Thou shalt commit 
adultery," " Thou shalt kill," " Thou shalt not honor thy 
father and mother," " Thou shalt not remember the Sabbath 
day to keep it holy," — we should be safe in rejecting its 
claims as a revelation, because we know sufficiently the 
elements involved in such a question to warrant our deci- 
sion. But suppose it tells us that God will punish eternally 
those who will not accept his offers of mercy in this world, 
is it safe for us to reject the Bible for that, as being against 
natural morality? Are we sure that we know all the 
facts? The question is broader than the Atlantic, and 
deeper than its depths ! It reaches over into eternity ! 
May we not overlook the very principle which, if seen, 
would remove all our difficulty? Does not sound Reason 
say here : This seems indeed very dark, yet I feel that 
I am but -imperfectly acquainted with the facts. I am not 
enough master of the subject confidently to say that a book 
with such a revelation cannot be from God. I will rather 
examine its claims ; and, if they satisfy me, I will decide 
that it is reasonable to receive it, in spite of all its myste- 
ries, and wait for further knowledge hereafter ; for, need- 
ing a revelation as much as we do, it is more reasonable to 



20 VERDICT OF REASON. 

receive a volume with such difficulties mingled with its 
great and obvious blessings than to take the ground that 
God has made no revelation at all to our need. 

The way of the reasonable mind, in regard to such truths 
beleagured with difficulties, was well stated by Sir Matthew 
Hale : "It is true that they, [i.e., these truths] being 
above the reach of Reason, cannot be by force of Reason as- 
sented unto ; yet there is no reason against the truth of 
them. Natural Reason hath a privative opposition to the 
knowledge of them ; namely, an absence of a necessity of 
assenting, not a positive opposition, or a constraint by ne- 
cessity of reason to disassent to them." 1 So, also, a later 
writer has suggested with great force and beauty, " There 
are truths to be believed which are not and cannot be reached 
by any native shrewdness of intelligence, or by the con- 
secutive deductions of reasoning. Of this description are 
some of our convictions as to infinity. Of a similar char- 
acter are many of the doctrines which God has revealed in 
his word. In regard to some of these, not only is a de- 
ductive reasoning incapable of demonstrating them, Reason in 
its highest degree is incapable of fully comprehending them. 
When it labors to do so, it is encompassed in darkness, and 
finds itself utterly at a loss, as it would seek to reconcile 
them with other truths sanctioned by Reason or experience. 
But still, even here, faith is not without reason ; for, in re- 
gard to certain of these truths, the intuitive Reason which 

l Discourse of the knowledge of God and of ourselves, p. 105. 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 21 

commands us to believe in them is above all derivative Rea- 
son ; and, in regard to truths revealed to us supernaturally 
""by God, Reason calls on us implicitly to submit to them as 
to an intelligence which cannot err. Reason always de- 
mands that we should have evidence, immediate or medi- 
ate, in order to believe ; but it does not insist that the 
truth be completely within the comprehension of the reason, 
or unclouded by mystery of any description. Faith has 
ever the support of Reason ; yet it goes far beyond Reason, 
and embraces much which is far beyond the conceptions of 
the intellect in its widest grasp and excursions. It is be- 
cause man has a natural capacity of faith in the unseen 
and unknown, that he is able to cherish a faith in the su- 
pernatural truths of God's word. It is because he has the 
natural gift of faith, that he is capable of rising to the 
supernatural grace." * 

This leads us to the next principle which Reason settles, 
and which has a most important bearing on the subject 
before us, namely : — 

IV. Reason, having accepted the Bible as the needed 
revelation from God, and studied its affirmations, decides 
that it is reasonable to receive it, and, interpreting it on 
sound principles, to make it in all particulars the guide 
of faith and life. Of course, if we need it, — and, not- 
withstanding all its difficulties, it is what we need, — it is 
reasonable to receive ifr; and, since we do not receive it 

1 McCosh's Intuitions of the Mind inductively investigated, p. 426. 



22 VERDICT OF REASON. 

unless we make its words the teacher of our faith and the 
guide of our life, it is reasonable for us to shape all belief 
and action by its voice. To have it, and neglect to live 
by it, would be as wickedly absurd as the throwing-away of 
a life-preserver when one is struggling for existence among 
the storm- waves. 

But what are the sound principles of its interpretation ? 
The Bible is a multifarious and many-sided volume, pre- 
senting its message in a great variety of aspects. It has 
some phase of truth for every mood of man. The parable 
instructs the child ; the precept, the philosopher. The 
history illustrates the precept, the biography re-enforces the 
history; and so voices come — from Eden to Patmos — 
from every page to every ear, often diverse in seeming, yet 
always blending, at last, into the grand monotone of eter- 
nal truth. How, amid this vast diversity of outward form 
and sound, shall man gather securely from it its great in- 
ward and vital lessons ? 

Reason has her ready answer. She suggests the follow- 
ing, as obviously just principles on which to proceed in 
interpreting its words : — 

A. We must take the whole Bible as our revelation, 
or none of it. It hangs together, and stands or falls in 
the mass. Christ vouched for the Old Testament in the 
same shape in which we have it to-day. And the Gospels 
and Epistles of the New Testament are so interwoven, that 
we must pass judgment upon it as a whole. It is all rea- 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 23 

sonable aud reliable, or none of it is. That moment in 
which Theodore Parker could reasonably say, I don't be- 
lieve such and such portions of the history of Jesus, and 
therefore threw it out of the canon, I, by the same right, 
may say, I don't believe in such and such other portions ; 
and another, by the same right, may say, I don't believe 
in Paul ; and still another, I don't believe in Peter ; and 
yet another, I don't believe in John; until, together, we 
have eviscerated the New Testament, and left ourselves 
with no Gospel and no Bible at all. And all reasonably, 
if it is reasonable for him to begin ! Each of our reasons 
is as reasonable as his : my I don't like it ; it doesn't 
commend itself to my good sense in this chapter and this 
verse, is just as good — I mean, of course, before the tri- 
bunal of my reason — as his before his reason ; everybody's 
else as good as either. And so the Bible is left to fall 
asunder into useless fragments; like a cask, when, one 
after another, you knock off the hoops. 

It may be confidently affirmed that it is impossible to re- 
ceive the Bible as a revelation from God, unless we receive 
the whole of it as such, for these two reasons : — 

(a.) All the evidence which we have to establish any 
of it as from God establishes the whole as from him. 
Christ indorsed the Old Testament — undeniably identi- 
cal with that now in our possession — as a whole ; while to 
succeed in demonstrating the claims of the eight men who 
wrote the New Testament to inspiration, is to succeed in 



24 VERDICT OF REASON. 

justifying the claim of the entire contribution of each to our 
faith. If they were inspired at all, their inspiration covers 
every line and letter of their books ; if they were not in- 
spired, then no line nor letter of their books is inspired : so 
that it is, in the nature of the case, impossible to dissect out 
a verse here and a verse there, and throw it out as worth- 
less, while receiving the rest. We must take the whole, 
or none. While, — 

(b.) Such a semi-revelation as is supposed by those who 
would accept a part of the Bible, and reject the rest, at 
their own judgment, would be really no revelation at all ; 
because we should need a second revelation to make clear 
to us what portions of the first are trustworthy, and a third 
to certify us how much of the second one to believe, 
and so on ad infinitum. Besides, to assume to sit in judg- 
menton the details of a revelation from God — after Reason 
has satisfied herself that it is a revelation from him — is to 
treat it as no longer a revelation, but as a mere communi- 
cation within the purview of our criticism. To criticise its 
details is to assume to have the knowledge to do so ; to 
have that knowledge, we must be above them ; and for us 
to be above them is to place them below us : and so we 
take them down from the loftiness of God's thoughts, which 
are not ours, and degrade them to the level of mere good 
advice, to be taken or rejected at our pleasure. 

So that I insist upon it as the first rule of a sound inter- 
pretation of the word of God, that, rightly understood, 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 25 

every part of the Bible has equal claim with every other 
part upon our confidence and obedience. 

B. The second ride is, that the language of the Scrip- 
tures must be interpreted by the laws of language honestly, 
honorably, and without twisting or forcing, to suit any 
preconceived theory, or any existing logical necessity. 
Much of the language of the Bible presents this difficulty 
over that of other ancient writings, in that it labors to ex- 
press the most recondite and spiritual truths in the matter- 
of-fact, materialistic speech of men ; compelling it to seize 
upon common sensuous epithets, and endeavor to dignify 
and hallow them sufficiently to make them hint the great 
realities of God. In doing this, it simply follows the ne- 
cessary laws of all growth of language by which words always 
travel up from lower to higher usage, — from a material to 
a metaphysical and religious sense. Thus, to express the 
idea of the sonl, it took the word for breath (because, when 
the breath is gone, the soul is gone), and put upon it that 
higher significance, idealizing it as spirit. So, to convey 
the conception of immortality, the word signifying ' ' to 
spoil," " to corrupt, " was taken, and prefixed by a nega- 
tive ; and so the compound " not-to-corrupt " was freighted 
with the sense of immortal life. In like manner, when it 
was desired to express the idea of repentance, there was 
nothing better than to lay hold of the compound ' ' to change 
the mind," and impress upon it the new idea ; though, in 
this case, sometimes the kindred compound, " to change the 



26 VERDICT OF REASON. 

purpose" was used to hint the same result from a slightly 
different point of view. So heaven is " the expanse of the 
sky," because God was supposed to dwell there; hell is 
" hades," that is, the " under-world," or " gehenna," that 
is, " the Valley of Hinnom, whither all the abominations of 
Jerusalem were sewered, and where they were burned. 

As every one of this great company of words embody- 
ing spiritual ideas — which can be comprehended by us, 
and described to us, only through the metaphysical sugges- 
tion of some sensible object or transaction — is thus a 
flower or a fruit, grown on the stalk of some prosaic literal 
epithet or phrase, of course it follows that all of them, 
which have not so long been spiritualized as to have dropped 
all trace of their birth into oblivion, may be said still to 
have two meanings, the primal and the secondary : nay, 
as they often retain, for some uses, still, that primal sense, 
they may, on one page, mean one thing literally, and, on 
the next, another thing spiritually. So that it becomes a 
great art of the honest interpreter to decide, from the con- 
nection and the good faith of the writer, in what sense his 
language, in any particular instance, ought to be taken. 

It is a favorite artifice of those who would empty the 
Bible of all reference to any future punishment of sin, to 
seek to prove that the terms used in a secondary, metaphy- 
ical sense, to teach it, should only be taken in their first and 
literal sense, which would not teach it; that "hell" is 
only "the Valley of Hinnom," &c. But the interpreter 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 27 

must be cautious how far he moves in this direction to ac- 
commodate their desire, lest in self-consistence he be com- 
pelled to overthrow the whole fabric of spiritual religion 
not merely, but to crowd language from its infinite diversi- 
ty and luxuriance of intellectual and spiritual wealth back 
into the bleak poverty of its crude and rudimentary 
forms ; making it impossible for God to reveal any thing 
to man, lest perchance he should reveal a hell for the per- 
sistently sinful. Such conduct, if any thing can, must 
come under the condemnation of " adulterating the word 
of God," l and " cheating by iV 3 2 

C. The third rule is, the Bible must be so interpreted 
as to be self-consistent. If we find Christ prophesied in 
the Old Testament, as to be the Messiah, we must expect 
to find the history of the New revealing his coming, as to 
fill that ofiice. If we find it revealed that the righteous 
are to be rewarded with life, and the wicked with death, 
and the same adjective is used to describe the duration of 
the life of the one and the death of the other, we must 
translate it in the one part of the verse as we do in the 
other ; though it sadly teaches us that the death of the 
wicked will be co-eternal with the life of the good. If 
the revelation is not thus consistent with itself, it is not the 
work of a consistent being ; is not God's word, — does 
not, cannot, claim our faith. 

D. The fourth rule of a reasonable interpretation is, 

l 2 Cor. ii. 17, 2 2 Cor. iv. 2. 



28 VERDICT OF REASON. 

that, among possible senses of a given passage of the 
Word, that which is plainest, and most likely to strike the 
mind of an unprejudiced reader of common intelligence 
and cidture, is likeliest to be right. This, because the 
Bible is intended for the great mass, — and the great 
mass will always be rude in culture ; and, if the Bible is 
to do them any good, it must be so shaped, that, in their 
hasty glances, they may grasp its general significance; 
that, in their hurried and homely perusal, though wayfaring 
men and — in the wisdom of the world — fools, they need 
not err therein. If it is not such a Bible as gives its gen- 
uine (though not its completest) sense to the unskilful 
searchings of the rudest swain, it is either because God 
would not or could not make it so ; and that he would 
not, we should affirm as reluctantly, as that he could not. 

E. The fifth ride of reasonable interpretation is, that 
the Bible should be dealt with as a progressive revelation. 
That it is so is obvious on the face of it. The world was 
young when its first books were written. Men were as 
children. The Hebrews were rude and illiterate. The 
Sermon on the Mount would have been as unintelligible 
on the plain before Sinai as the " rule of three "is to the 
boy only half through with simple addition. The gradual 
training of the Jews to sacrifice a lamb for their sins was all 
the approach to the doctrine of Christ crucified — the lamb 
of God that taketh away the sins of the world — that they 
were then prepared to appreciate. Fifteen hundred years 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 29 

after, fifteen centuries of sacrifices had educated them up 
to the apprehension of the idea of the atonement through 
the blood of Jesus. So, measurably, with all doctrines. 

We therefore do violence to the fundamental construction 
of the Bible, if we assume that all its books are on a level 
of preceptive revelation, and suspect the doctrine of the 
Trinity, or that of the atonement, or of immortality, or of 
future punishment, because we cannot find them as clearly 
set forth in the Old Testament as in the New, and are un- 
able to get proof-texts of equal clearness for them from 
every page of the word alike. 

F. The sixth rule of a reasonable interpretation is, 
that the Bible is to be understood naturally, and from 
the position occupied by its own speakers and audiences. 
This would be too obvious to demand a word, did not men 
so strangely misunderstand the Scriptures. Nobody thinks 
of reading Shakspeare or Spenser, as if written now, and 
affixing to his language the signification now current ; but, 
when we study old authors, we endeavor to drink in the 
spirit of their time, and hear them as their cotemporaries 
heard them, and interpret them as their friends and neigh- 
bors did. So we ought to do with the Bible. If we wish 
to know what Christ really meant to teach on any given 
occasion, we must try to settle exactly what he would 
naturally have been understood to mean by those who 
heard him : and, in nine cases out of ten, that is his real 
meaning ; always, I think it is safe to say, where he 



30 VERDICT OF REASON. 

does not avowedly speak in parable or prophecy unex- 
plained, or with some similar limitation or modification ex- 
pressed or obviously understood. 

G. The seventh rule of a reasonable interpretation of 
Scripture is, that toe cannot expect to understand it all, 
or perhaps, indeed, little of it fully. This follows from 
the necessary incomprehensibleness of many of its topics to 
our minds in their present stage of advancement. God, 
eternity, heaven, hell, the soul, — these are themes that 
run at once far out beyond any present human power of 
complete comprehension, just as the blue heavens stretch 
away beyond the utmost limit of our eyesight. We may 
understand them in another world. Our best interests 
here require that we should have hints about them. And 
so God reveals something concerning them. But the very 
attempt to bring them down at all to our present plane 
of thought brings down their difficulties with them, and 
introduces us partially to numberless questions which we 
cannot answer now, — ought not to expect to be able to 
answer here. Yet, concerning these, sound Reason says : 
Believe what portion you can, and trust God for the rest ; 
it is not necessarily unreasonable or false because you can- 
not now understand it. 

A telegraph-wire sings in the morning breeze before 
your door. Your little child gazes at it, and asks you to 
tell him about it. You say it carries messages. But 
how? You try, and try, and try again, but find, that at 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 31 

his tender age, and with his limited data of knowledge, you 
cannot make him understand how it does it. Yet you feel 
that it is reasonable for him to believe it on your word, 
though it may seem absurd to him; and, troubled by 
an inconsistency that to his little mind seems fatal, he 
keeps on saying, Father, the wire is dead iron, how can 
it talk or write or carry ? You answer : My son, you 
cannot expect to understand this now, — one of these days, 
when your mind grows large, and your studies embrace 
these subjects, you will. 

The same is true of us — the wisest of us — in regard 
to some of the revelations of the Bible. As we are now, we 
cannot expect to make every thing which it contains consis- 
tent with every thing else in the Bible, and out of it, — not 
because of its non-consistence, but because our minds are not 
yet developed enough, our range of study is not yet broad 
enough, to fit us to see that consistency. 

H. Tlie eighth rule of a reasonable interpretation 
of Scripture is, that, where two interpretations are pos- 
sible, that one is probably truest which has most com- 
mended itself to the Christian experience of the past. 
This is naturally suggested by the consciousness of our per- 
sonal inadequacy to such investigations as the Bible offers. 
We crave help to our work. We long to know how other 
minds, looking on these same great questions from other 
quarters of the heavens, — from the varied influences of 
distant climes and diverse ages, — have regarded them. We 



32 VERDICT OF REASON. 

have found that we can get wisdom from the experience of 
our fellow-men on every other subject : so we believe we can 
do in the inquiry what in their life they have proved to 
be the most satisfying, apposite, likeliest sense of the 
Scripture. Besides, the promise is, that the Holy Spirit 
will interpret the word ; and we want to know what the re- 
sult of his work in the past has been. It is eighteen cen- 
turies since Christianity began to gather its system oui of 
the whole Bible as we now have it. More than twice that 
number of generations have rolled away, each having its 
proportion, larger or smaller, of faithful, humble, devout, 
godly men and women ; the savor of whose sweet graces 
in a naughty world makes the record of the inward life of 
the Church during all those ages, in spite of its outward 
troubles and shames, to be "as ointment poured forth." 
Every one of them has had communion with the mind of 
the Spirit, and, with all personal imperfections and all frail- 
ties incident to nation or station, has been divinely led into 
sympathy with essential godliness. Differing widely in 
lesser matters, they have been mainly one in their great 
life and love. They have been one with each other be- 
cause one in Christ ; one in Christ because one in the 
truth of Christ ; one in the truth of Christ because divinely 
led by Christ into one truth, — the truth of God, which 
always makes men wise unto salvation. The Bible is a 
practical revelation. Men have tried its precepts, and 
the Church has therefore prepared herself to testify : This 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 33 

is true, for it has proved true in car case ; we have found 
this precept sound, this doctrine effective, this duty 
blessed. 

When, then, two interpretations of any portion of the 
Bible are possible, that stands a very strong chance of 
being truest which can claim the coincident faith and love 
of the Church of Christ during all these ages ; not neces- 
sarily of the Church in its hierarchal forms, as men are apt 
to look to it (for there is often least of the inward spirit 
where there is most of the outward form, so that what calls 
itself and is called " the Church," par excellence, may be 
but the world specially rampant in ecclesiastic garb) . But 
ignoring the Church nominal, as ambition and unholy 
policy have made it, if we look to the Church real, the 
humble faithful ones who in every generation, often cast 
out as evil by "the Church," have maintained their re- 
generate purity, and lived and walked with God, we shall 
find their words reflecting light upon the sacred page. 
God promised expressly that his Spirit should lead his chil- 
dren into all truth, and it is not reasonable to suppose that 
he has failed in great essentials to verify that promise. 
Therefore that version of a controverted doctrine which 
truly good men have most loved and believed, bears this 
reasonable witness of its probable truth, — especially as 
against one which they have almost uniformly rejected. 

I. The ninth rule of a reasonable interpretation of 
Scripture is, that, where two interpretations seem to be 



34 VERDICT OF REASON. 

possible, that is often probably truest which we naturally 
like least. I do not mean to intimate that the Bible is 
against our natural instincts, or adverse to our innocent 
tastes; but that many of its doctrinal teachings, being 
medicine for our disease of sin, are apt to seem bitter to 
our spiritual palate. We are naturally wanderers from 
God, and at antagonism with him ; our will being op- 
posed to his will. But his Word must naturally contain 
and be saturated with his will, and therefore will be 
likely to express itself in terms distasteful to our will. So 
that, where two spiritual senses seem possible to God's 
words, that sense is often likeliest to be nearest his will, 
and therefore truest, which is furthest from ours, and which, 
therefore, we like least. We may indeed expand this in- 
to a general principle, and safely pronounce that interpre- 
tation of the Word of God which favors God most and sin 
least to be prima facie the true one, because the very 
object of the gospel is to destroy sin. If there can be gath- 
ered out of the Scriptures two theories on any subject, each 
claiming the support of sundry passages, it will nearly 
always be safe to conclude, other things being equal, that 
that theory which is most comfortable to the sinner must 
be the false one, and that theory which is strictest m its 
judgment, and sternest in its condemnation of all evil, and 
least inviting toward transgression, must be the true one. 
J. Still another principle which reason suggests for 
the interpretation of the Bible is, that, where two senses 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 35 

are possible, that must be most reasonable which is on the 
ivhole safest for man. This is not sinful selfishness, but 
rational self-eare ; for sound judgment always says, In 
a world of danger, you are sacredly bound to make the 
best provision for your own safety that you can. If, of 
two commercial ventures which are equally profitable, one 
has large contingencies of loss which the other wholly 
avoids, no sane merchant would risk his all upon the un- 
certainty when the certainty was equally at his disposal. 
No wise traveler selects a route where it is quite probable 
that he may meet with disaster and death, in preference to 
one, even though less inviting, which promises absolute se- 
curity. If, then, for our eternal journey into the cloud- 
curtained and mysterious future, we can classify the great 
biblical guide-book into the indication of two possible paths, 
one of which, if too late there should prove to be any 
mistake about our understanding, will endanger our final 
wreck, while the other by no possibility can do so, sound 
reason will at once and instinctively select that which 
gathers most of security about that after-world which has in 
itself the elements of so fearful a mystery, and say : This 
is the way, — walk ye in it. 

Two objections have been urged against this principle : 
one, that, if true, it proves too much, and would make Ro- 
manists of us all ; the other, that it is a mean and ignoble 
one. Both misconceive its real character and just appli- 
cation. 



36 VERDICT OF REASON. 

(1.) The Romanist insists, it is said, that Protest' 
ants may be wrong, while " the Church " is infallibly right ; 
therefore, if this principle of safety is to be taken into the 
account, it will send us all into the embrace of the Pa- 
pacy. 

To this I answer : Not unless the claim of the Romanist 
be a valid one ; and, if it be, we ought to follow it. His 
assumption, that there is no safety out of his Church, begs 
the very question at issue, and is worth nothing until it 
can establish itself out of the Bible before the judgment-seat 
of common sense. If it can do so, then safety, and every 
principle of honor and right as well, would prompt us to 
become Romanists. If it fail to do so, safety, no more 
than every principle of honor and right, constrains us to 
resist his assumption. 

(2.) It is objected that to make the superior safety of a 
given course of conduct an element in coming to the con- 
clusion that the Bible recommends it, is a cowardly and 
dishonorable procedure, — one that would have made its 
disciple a Tory in the Revolution, a " Copperhead," in our 
present struggle. 

This not only begs the question equally with the other, — 
for events, in both cases mentioned, settle it that the path 
of safety and the path of duty are identical, — but it ignores 
the important difference between the idea of safety as one 
rule of interpretation of the work of God, and as an ele- 
ment in the decisions of human conduct. It lies on the 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 37 

face of the Bible, and of all the Divine Providence over 
men, that human safety was a moving consideration on 
God's part in all. " Christ Jesus came into the world to 
save sinners ; " 1 and Paul characterizes the design of the 
gospel as to be " for salvation unto the ends of the earth." 2 
Surely, then, if human safety is one great design for which 
a revelation has been made to men, it cannot be unreason- 
able for them to bear that fact in mind in their interpreta- 
tion of that revelation ; and, where its language admits of 
two diverse constructions, to put upon it that which, so far 
as they can carefully judge, will be safest for them. 

The truth is, that those very men, who, when they ap- 
prehend danger to their theology from the admission of 
such a principle into the interpretation of the Scriptures, 
reject it, and sneer at it as an ' ' appeal to our selfishness 
and our fears," habitually and unquestioningly act upon it 
as a fundamental principle of their daily life. They never 
think it to be an act of selfishness and of fear to select the 
stanchest and most seaworthy of two competing lines of 
steamers when they take passage for a foreign port ; or, 
even that route of rail, for a journey of a few miles, which 
is reputed freest from all risk of accident and harm. Then 
the consideration of superior safety is a rational and honor- 
able one. How, then, on any sound principles of reason- 
ing, does it suddenly become so mean and despicable, 
when it is proposed to apply it to eternal things ! 

l 1 Tim. i. 15, 2 Acts xiii. 47. 



38 VERDICT OF REASON. 

Thus, then, I sum up our argument thus far. It is 
reasonably settled that Reason, as I have defined it, is our 
ultimate judge in matters of religion. 

Yet, when interrogated upon so vast and wide a question 
as the eternal punishment of those who die in impenitence, 
she replies that she cannot without help answer it ; but has 
cause confidently to rely upon help from God to enable 
her to answer it. 

She decides it clear that he has sent her the aid which 
she needs, in the Scriptures of the Old and New Tes- 
tament ; and so remits us to their pages for her final ver- 
dict. 

She decides that it is the highest dictate of Reason for 
us humbly and faithfully to receive whatever we find in 
those pages, soundly interpreted. 

She decides that sound principles of interpretation are 
these : — 

1. We must take the whole of it or none. 

2. We must interpret it honestly, honorably, and in the 
interest of no previous theory. 

3. We must interpret it consistently with itself. 

4. The plainest and most obvious meaning, other things 
being equal, is probably the true one. 

5. We must interpret it as a progressive revelation. 

6. We must interpret it naturally, and from the posi- 
tion of its own speakers and audiences. 

7. Yet we cannot, with our finite minds at their pres- 



RULES OF INTERPRETATION. 39 

ent stage of development, expect to understand it all ; 
perhaps, indeed, little of it, fully. 

8. Of two equally possible meanings, that is likeliest to 
be true which has most commended itself to good men all 
along the ages. 

9. Of two equally possible meanings, that is often 
most probably true which is least tasteful to us. 

10. Of two equally possible meanings, that must be 
most reasonable which seems to be safest for men. 

Studying the Scriptures prayerfully, in the use of 
those principles she decides that we may look to find clear 
and sufficient answer to our inquiry. To that study let 
us now advance. And may that great God of infinite 
wisdom, who knoweth with an eternally perfect knowledge, 
not only the right answer to this question, but the vast 
import to his honor and our own welfare of our gaining 
that answer, with all the difficulties that lie in our path 
toward it, be mercifully pleased to guard us from error, 
and to conduct us to that conclusion which shall be right 
in his sight, for the sake of him who, promising to men 
the spirit of truth, to guide them into all truth, laid down 
his own life that he might bear witness to the truth ! 



CHAPTER III. 

THE TESTIMONY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

IN endeavoring to develop the actual position of the 
Bible upon this question of the future eternal punish- 
ment of the finally impenitent, it seems to me that it will 
be fairest, as well as every way most convenient, for us 
to search, in the first place, for the more direct testimony 
of the Old Testament ; secondly, for that of our Saviour ; 
thirdly, for that of the apostles ; and, fourthly, for those 
more casual and indirect utterances, from whatever source, 
which, in the light of those previously considered, which 
are impossible of misconstruction, take a decided, and, 
from their very incidental character, peculiarly weighty 
significance. 

Such an arrangement will at least facilitate our en- 
deavors to comply with the fourth and fifth rules which 
we have laid down to aid in a reasonable interpretation ; 
namely, that we regard the Bible as a progressive revela- 
tion, and that we interpret it from the position of its 
writers and speakers. We shall thus also most easily 
hope to avoid that danger, which threatens the argu- 

40 



TESTIMONY OF TEE OLD TESTAMENT. 41 

ments of all who search indiscriminately for proof-texts of 
any doctrine, guided merely by the apparent appositeness 
of the language used, of unconsciously affixing to some 
such passages a sense greater or less or other than really 
belongs to them when studied in their connection, and 
balanced by all those counterpoising considerations which 
naturally associate themselves with their normal intention 
and relations. 

Let us, then, proceed to inquire what is the testimony 
of the Old Testament in regard to the future state of those 
who die impenitent. 

As we open the book, almost on its first page we read 
the voice of God to Adam, in reference to the fruit of the 
tree of knowledge : ' ' Thou shalt not eat of it ; for in 
the day thou eatest thereof (ffifafi Wn moth ta miith), 
to die, thou shalt die." 1 This is a very peculiar ex- 
pression. What does it fairly and honestly mean? and 
how much is legitimately expressed by it ? I remark in 
exposition of it : — 

1. It means more than the simple prophecy of physical 
death as sure to come upon Adam, should he disobey. 
That idea would have found natural utterance through 
the future form of the same verb (yamiithu), as in Numbers 
xiv. 35; or, by another verb {gava), as in Genesis vi. 17; 
Job xiii. 19, and other passages. 

2. It means more than the threatening of what we call 

i Genesis ii. 17. 



42 VERDICT OF REASON. 

capital punishment upon Adam for the offence of eating. 
That would have found expression by the last word of the 
two (ta-muth, — thou shalt be put to death) , without the 
intensifier (moth, — to die), as where Pharaoh told Moses : 
"In that day thou seest my face (ta-mrith), thou shalt 
die; " 1 and where God decrees that the negligent owner 
of an ox which gores a man (yumoth, — another tense of 
the same verb) " shall be put to death." 2 

3. But if this language meant more to Adam than the 
mere prophecy, that to eat the forbidden fruit would prove 
suicidal to his bodily life ; more even than the threat, that 
he should be put to death for such disobedience ; what did 
it mean? If to have told him " Thou shalt die" would 
have been telling him that much, what was he to under- 
stand from being told, that "he should die to die" if he 
disobeyed ? 

One answer is, that it was a mere hightening of empha- 
sis (as in Genesis xx. 7 ; 1 Sam. xiv. 39, 44 ; 2 Sam. 
xii. 14, &c), making the sense of it to be, " There can be 
no mistake about it; thou shalt surely die." But to this 
it may be replied, that there seems to be no call for such 
special emphasis in the divine utterance here, if simple 
physical death were all that were intended. The idea of 
death, in any form, was as yet without illustration before 

1 Exodus x. 28. 

2 Exodus xxi. 29. Compare also Numbers i. 51, and many kindred 



TESTIMONY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 43 

Adam's mind; but he was unhackneyed in speech, words 
had not lost force to him by that long familiarity which 
breeds contempt ; and, so far as death meant any thing to 
him then, its force would seem to have been as sufficient 
of itself as if hightened by such repetition. 

It seems to me that to tell Adam that, if he disobeyed, 
he should die, to die, was, vaguely to be sure, — for all 
such ideas must have lacked important elements of clear- 
ness and force to his virgin mind in its earliest hours, — to 
tell him, not merely that his physical life should come to 
an end, but that that dying should be for the purpose of 
yet another death beyond, — he should die, in order to die ; 
dying here, that he might die again, and somewhere else. 
And, if we examine the use of the same words in the next 
chapter, this view, to my mind, gains confirmation. There, 
in the interview between the serpent and Eve, the latter 
says to the former, 1 " Of the fruit of the tree which is 
in the midst of the garden, God hath said (to us) ye shall 
not eat of it, and ye shall not touch it, lest (fmu-thim — 
third person plural, future, without the intensitive) ye shall 
die." The serpent in his reply does not give her back 
her own term, which might apply to physical death only, 
but adds the very word which God had originally used in 
his interview with Adam, but which Eve had dropped out, 
and says, " By no means (moth f mu4hiiri), to die shall 
ye die / for God is knowing that, in the day of your eating 

l Genesis iii. 3-5. 



44 VERDICT OF REASON. 

of it, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be God-like, 
knowing good and evil. ' ' The latter member of the an- 
tithesis here intimated reflects light upon the former ; and, 
by suggesting the idea of God-likeness and omniscience as 
the real result of eating the forbidden fruit, the serpent 
indicates his understanding of God's threat to have con- 
sisted in the opposite of God-likeness and omniscience, 
which is much more decidedly the eternal death of impeni- 
tence than the mere instantaneous cessation of the bodily 
life. 

But, whether the Hebrew text necessitates this view or 
not, it demands more, in my judgment, than mere proph- 
ecy or threat, more even than emphasis from the double 
verb ; and the great majority of careful students of the 
verse have regarded it as projecting a dark mysterious 
menace over into the shadowy future, — as revealing to 
the first man, as clearly as the circumstances of his case 
made possible, the fact that unrepented sin compels an 
unrewarded eternity. 1 

l There seems to be great good sense in Calvin's suggestion in 
explanation of this text, that "the definition of this death is to be 
sought from its opposite, — the kind of life from which man fell. 
His earthly life, truly, would have been temporal; but he would have 
passed from it directly into heaven, without death and without injury. 
Hence it follows, that, under the name of ' death' is comprehended all 
those miseries in which Adam involved himself by his defection."— 
Comment, i. 127. 

So Bush says, " We are taught by the actual result what sense to 
affix to the terms. So that the threatening embraced all the evils, 



TESTIMONY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 45 

But grant that here, in this first experience of the race, 
was laid the corner-stone of the revelation of the doctrine 
of future punishment, the question at once arises : Why 
did not the superstructure immediately follow ? I answer, 
there is -something more than poetry in the idea, that the 
life of the world resembles the life of individuals. His- 
tory is full of illustrations of the fact, that the nations 
have their infancy when their ideas are crude and their 
capacity for knowledge is limited. So the race had its 
centuries of childhood. The children of Israel were at 
first incapable (as we readily perceive the savage now to 
be) of understanding abstract and advanced truth, and 
needed to be led from weakness to strength, and then 
from strength to strength, by the simplest picture lessons. 
Accordingly, we find that God, for centuries, dealt with 
them as with children, gradually advancing from milk to 
strong meat, as they were able to bear it. And the Bible 
contains the record of this advance, with that of the means 
used to accomplish it. 

Now, as we practically know that immature minds are 
more influenced by the present than by the future, and as 
we are, therefore, not accustomed to secure the obedience 
and moral advance of our young children by appeals to a 
distant retribution, so much as by immediate and tangible 
discipline ; so God did not, at first, rely for the training 

spiritual, temporal, and eternal, which we learn elsewhere to be in- 
cluded in the term death, as a punishment for sin." — Comment, i. 63. 



46 VERDICT OF REASON. 

of the Hebrew mind upon the idea of the eternal life, and 
of heaven and hell, with their rewards and punishments, 
so much as he sought to stimulate obedience by motives 
appealing to their immediate and temporal welfare. 
Length of days, peace, wealth, and honor were promised 
to him who obeyed the law ; while disaster, distress, and 
death were threatened as the punishment of the disobedient 
and rebellious. In this, nothing was either affirmed or 
denied in reference to the future world, — just as we 
neither affirm nor deny any thing in reference to it while 
we are training our little ones by nearer and more obvious 
considerations. 

But it is objected here, that, if the doctrine of eternal 
punishment be true, it was true in Adam's time ; true 
through all those early centuries which intervened before 
the race, in their slow progressive intelligence, began to 
take knowledge of it ; but that if so true, and if all those 
generations of men were exposed to it, God ought — and 
from his known character might be expected — to have 
announced it "on the very morning of creation, in the most 
positive and unmistakable language, as a warning to Adam 
and all future generations. And if it was not so an- 
nounced, no man, who reverences the character of God, 
ought to ask for a more overwhelming presumptive proof 
that it is not true." 1 

1 Review of Rev. H. M. Dexter's Sermon, by Rev. T. B, Thayer. 
Boston, 1858, p. 10. 



TESTIMONY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 47 

To this I answer : — 

1. If revealed, as we claim that it was, to the ex- 
tent to which the immature Hebrew mind was able to re- 
ceive it, that revelation was, under the circumstances, fair 
and sufficient. 

2. If, by any sudden, miraculous work upon that mind, 
it had been possible for God to highten the distinctness 
and force of that revelation, it is not clear that it would 
have added any thing to the safety of the receiver of the 
doctrine, while it would clearly have added to the guilt of 
its rejectors. 

3. The Scripture makes obvious the fact, that responsi- 
bility and guilt are always directly and exactly proportioned 
to the degree of light in possession ; to the result that only 
" as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by 
the law," so that God will be clear when he judges. 

The essential futility of the principle on which such an 
objection rests may be illustrated thus : If it be a fact that 
poison is deadly to human life, it is a fact while children 
are yet too young to comprehend it. But, if all the infants 
in the world are hourly exposed to death by poison, a God 
of infinite power and kindness might be expected to an- 
nounce that danger on the very morning of human exist- 
ence, in the most positive and unmistakable language, as 
a warning to every babe in the world. And, if it has not 
been so announced, no man who reverences the character 
of God ought to ask for a more overwhelming presump- 
tive proof that poison is not deadly to human life ! 



48 VERDICT OF BEASOif. 

Though a long time passed , then, before future rewards 
and punishments were at ail urged upon the Hebrews as 
motives of action, it is not true that they did not believe 
in the immortality of the soul. Their ideas were doubtless 
crude and dim at first ; but the laws which Moses made 
against necromancy, 1 or the invocation of the dead, imply 
that the Israelites must have had some impression that dead 
men were not gone, into non-existence. 2 So the record 
which was made of Enoch, " God took him," implies an 
invisible life with God. So where Jacob says, " I will go 
down into sheol unto my son," 3 he suggests his belief of 
a place where society is possible among the departed. And 
the common phrase of one dying, " he went to his fathers," 
or " was gathered to his fathers," indorses the same belief. 
Job, with a brave heart, though in speech so vague as to 
demonstrate that his convictions were not yet clear, points 
towards the future world as the place where his Redeemer 
should vindicate his character, 4 and even inquires of his 
friends if they have not heard, and will not admit, that the 
wicked is reserved to the day of destruction, and will be 
brought forth in the day of wrath ; adding — in evidence 
that he does not mean any day of wrath in this world — 
that this will happen though the wicked man here is pros- 
perous, and is borne with honor to the tomb. 5 

Gradually, clearer intimations are given of the future 

1 Deut. xviii. 11. 2 Gen. v. 24. 3 Gen. xxxvii. 35. 

4 Job xix. 25. 3 Job xxi. 29-33. See Barnes on Job, i. xciii. 



TESTIMONY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 49 

world, and more decided allusion is made to the separation 
there between the righteous and the wicked. A thousand 
years before Christ, the Psalmist speaks with much greater 
distinctness and decision. He says, " The wicked shall be 
turned into hell (sheol), and all the nations that forget 
God." * " Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and 
brimstone, and a horrible tempest." 2 So " Salvation is 
far from the wicked." 3 So he closes a vivid picture of the 
guilt and excess of bad men, and the record of his wonder 
that God should permit such guilt in them, by saying, that, 
when he went into the sanctuary of God, he understood 
" their end," and saw that they were to be brought into 
desolation, and consumed with terrors. 4 And in the ninety- 
second Psalm he pursues the same thought, "When all 
the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be 
destroyed for ever." 5 

A little after, we find the authors of the Book of Pro- 
verbs, and of the Ecclesiastes, speaking even more strongly. 
We read, " The wicked is driven away in his wickedness ; 
but the righteous hath hope in his death." 6 And again, 
" The hope of the righteous shall be gladness ; but the ex- 
pectation of the wicked shall perish." 7 And yet again, 
" When a wicked man dieth his expectation shall perish." 8 
And again, as if to explain some of the mysteries of life 

l Psalm ix. 17. 2 Psalm xi. 6. 3 Psalm cxix. 155. 

4 Psalm lxxiii. 17. 5 Verse 7. 6 Proverbs xiv. 32, 

7 Proverbs x. 28. 8 Proverbs xi. 7. 

4 



50 VERDICT OF BEASON. 

by the fact that the punishment which the wicked deserve 
is delayed, " Because sentence against an evil work is not 
executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men 
is fully set in them to do evil ;" 1 which, for its full effect 
demands to be regarded as an implication of a future exe- 
cution of such sentence. So we are told that " God shall 
bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, 
whether it be good, or whether it be evil," 2 where not only 
judgment, but retribution, beyond the grave, is inevitably 
asserted. 3 

Passing on to the times of the prophets, we find Isaiah 
saying, " Woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him, for 
the reward of his hand shall be given him ; " 4 and Ezekiel 
declaring that God will pour out his fury upon the wicked, 
and accomplish his anger upon them, and judge them ac- 
cording to their ways, and recompense them for all their 
abominations ; 5 and Amos predicting that they that swear 

l Ecclesiastes viii. 11. 2 Ecclesiastes xii. 14. 

3 Prof. Stuart argues with great force in proof that the design of the 
Book of Ecclesiastes is to prove (1) that retribution, adequate and just, 
of good and evil, will certainly be made. (2) It is not made here. (3) 
Therefore it will be made in the future world. He says, " If there be 
any way of properly shunning or avoiding this conclusion, it is un- 
known to me." And some German critics, like Knobel, have consid- 
ered the verse quoted above as so clear and unmistakable an assertion 
of a future judgment, that they have supposed it to be the forgery of 
some later date, because they held that the author of the book could 
have had no such belief. But Prof. Stuart both shows that its author 
could and did believe it, and that there is no shadow of proof of the 
imagined forgery. — Commentary on Eccles. pp. 33, 290. 

•4 Isaiah iii. 11. 5 Ezekiel vii. 8. 



TESTIMONY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 51 

by the sin of Samaria, "Even they shall fall, and never 
rise up again ; " l and Nahum urging, " The Lord is great 
in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked." 2 

The last verse of the prophecy of Isaiah says of that dis- 
tant future when the kingdom of God shall be finally and 
perpetually established, "And they (God's people) shall 
go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have 
transgressed against me ; for their worm shall not die, nei- 
ther shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an ab- 
horring unto all flesh." 3 Here is the origin of the meta- 
phor which we shall find Christ often using in his fearful 
descriptions of the future condition of the wicked. 4 So the 
last chapter of the prophecy of Daniel (supposed to date 
about 534 years before Christ) indicates a clearer concep- 
tion than before, of the great idea of a future and unend- 
ing difference between the righteous and the wicked. The 
prophet — speaking of some time of future resurrection of 

l Amos viii. 14. 2 Nahum i. 3. 3 Isaiah lxvi. 24. 

4 " The Saviour (Mark ix. 44-46) applies this language to the future 
punishment of the wicked, and no one, I think, can doubt that in Isaiah 
it includes that consummation of worldly affairs. The radical and es- 
sential idea in the prophet is, as it seems to me, that such would be the 
entire overthrow and punishment of the enemies of God ; so condign 
their punishment, so deep their sufferings, so loathsome and hateful 
would they be when he visited with divine vengeance for their sins 
that they would be an object of loathing and abhorrence. They would 
be swept off as unworthy to live with God, and they would be con. 
signed to punishment loathsome like that of ever-gnawing worms on the 
carcasses of the slain, and interminable and dreadful like ever-consum- 
ing and inextinguishable fires. »■— Barnes's Comment, on Isaiah, ii. 457. 



52 VERDICT OF REASON. 

the dead — says, ' ' And many of them that sleep in the dust 
of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some 
to shame and everlasting contempt." 1 

The history of the Hebrew word bS^TIJ (sheol) illustrates 
this progress of the ideas of futurity and future punish- 
ment in the Old-Testament times. It literally means a 
hollow, subterranean place, and first came into use as a 
name for the grave. As where Jacob says, "I will go 
down into sheol unto my son mourning. 2 But, as the grave 
is the visible resting-place of all of the dead that is obvious 
to sense, it was a very easy transition that soon after led 
to the application of the word to the spiritual position of 
the departed, — the home of all souls, a vast receptacle 
where the life that had ceased here is continued until the 
resumption of the body at the resurrection, and the day of 
judgment with its decisions. Gradually, as the successive 
utterances of inspired men and the successive books of the 
Bible imparted to the Jewish people clearer ideas of the 
future state, this word came to be modified in accordance 
with those ideas. Sheol, the great cavernous under- world, 
was conceived to be divided ; its upper portion was imag- 
ined to contain an inferior paradise, where the righteous 
waited until the resurrection and the judgment should re- 
mit them to heaven ; and its lower portion — the abyss, 
gehenna — ■ was supposed to retain the souls of the wicked 

1 Daniel xii. 2. 2 Genesis xxxvii. 35. 



TESTIMONY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 53 

until the same epoch of finality. Sometimes the word clearly 
carried more distinctly the latter significance. David 
uses it in a sense which can not naturally apply to any 
place, in this world or the next, where the righteous as well 
as the wicked are sent. 1 So in Proverbs we find several 
passages so employing it as most naturally to suggest the 
association with it, in the mind of the writer, of the idea of 
the abode of the wicked and miserable dead. 2 

The Old Testament was the great teacher of the Hebrew 
people ; given to be so, and demonstrably fulfilling its de- 
sign. It follows, therefore, that the state of opinion on 
this subject actually existing among the Jews, at the time 
when the canon of the Old Testament was closed, and it 
had wrought its full work upon their minds, may be taken 
in evidence of the actual fact and force of its instructions . 
And what that state of opinion was we need be at no loss 
to discover. Josephus, born four years after the ascension 
of Christ, whose learning and opportunities of knowledge 
will not be questioned, describes with considerable care the 
philosophical and religious belief of the nation. He classi- 
fies the Jews into three sects, — Pharisees, Sadducees, 
and Essenes ; the first dividing with the last the vast ma- 
jority of the nation. Of the Essenes he says, "To the 
bad they allot a gloomy and tempestuous cavern full of 
never-ending punishment." 3 He says that the Pharisees 

1 Psalm ix. 17. 2 Proverbs v. 5 ; ix. 18 j xv. 24 ) xxiii. 14. 

3 Jewish War, book ii. chap. 8, sect. 11. 



54 VERDICT OF REASON. 

believed that the souls of the bad ' ' suffer eternal punish- 
ment." * Of the Sadducees he says, "The permanency of 
the soul, and the punishments and reward of Hades, they 
reject." 2 These last were the infidels of their day, and 
Josephus elsewhere adds, ' ' This doctrine is received but 
by a few." 3 So that, on his testimony, the vast majority 
of his nation, when Christ came, were firm believers in the 
future punishment of the wicked. 

Jahn sums up his researches into the doctrine of the 
Jews in this department, by saying that the Pharisees 
taught " that the spirits of the wicked were tormented with 
everlasting punishments ; that the good, on the other hand, 
received rewards ; " 4 and that the Essenes believed " that 
the good after death received rewards beyond the islands 
of the sea, and that the wicked suffered punishments under 
the earth." 5 

The Jewish Rabbis had various theories of explanation 
of the mysteries involved in this fearful subject, but they 
agreed in teaching an eternal difference between the right- 
eous and the wicked. 6 We find corroboration of this as 
the view then taken by the Jewish nation as a whole, in 
the fact, that future punishment is appealed to as a motive 

1 Jewish War, book ii. chap. 8, sect. 14. 2 Ibid. 

3 Antiquities of the Jews, book xviii. chap. i. sect. 4. 

4 Biblical Archaeology, p. 403. 5 Ibid. p. 411. 

6 See a learned article by Prof. Barrows in the BiUiotlieca Sacra for 
July 1858. 



TESTIMONY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 55 

to virtue in the apocryphal books, (supposed to range in 
date from B. C. 300, to B. C. 30,) which — although 
without the authority of inspiration — have yet a certain 
value as witnesses of the opinions of the times which pro- 
duced them. In the second book of the Maccabees, the 
old man Eleazer is represented as refusing to be guilty of 
deceit to save his life, for he says, " Though for the pres- 
ent time I should be delivered from the punishment of 
men ; yet should I not escape the hand of the Almighty, 
neither alive nor dead." 1 So a young martyr is represent- 
ed as saying, with his dying breath, to the wicked king : 
" Think not thou, that takest in hand to strive against 
God, that thou shalt escape unpunished." 2 So in the third 
chapter of the Wisdom of Solomon we read, "The souls 
of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall 
no torment touch them ; " while of the wicked it is said, 
"If they die quickly, they have no hope, neither comfort 
in the day of trial ; for horrible is the end of the unright- 
eous generation." 3 

So conclusive is the evidence on this point, that no well 
informed and candid person will attempt to deny it. Rev. 
T. S. King conceded this in his sermons against the doc- 
trine, saying, " There is no doubt that the Pharisees of 
the New-Testament times believed in eternal damnation. 
Let the doctrine receive all the strength and respectability 
which such an indorsement may confer." 4 

l 2 Maccabees vi. 26. 2 Ibid. vii. 19. 

3 Verses 1, 18, 19. 4 Two Sermons, p. 23. 



56 VERDICT OF REASON. 

An earnest effort has been made to prove that the Old 
Testament was not responsible for this opinion thus existing 
among the Jews, but that they received it from their 
heathen neighbors. That respectable writer just quoted 
has even gone so far as to say, — 

" There is no allusion, in the Old Testament, to punish- 
ment at all in the unseen world. So long as the Jews 
were under the exclusive influence of the Old-Testament 
literature and inspiration, they held no doctrine of future 
punishment. Down to the time of Malachi, it had not 
appeared among them. That doctrine came into their 
mind from heathen sources, chiefly from Alexandria in 
Egypt, and their connection with Greek mythology and 
speculation. It is only in the later books of the Apocry- 
pha, approaching the time of Christ, that the dogma is 
detected in their literature." 1 

But the first stone of Alexandria in Egypt was not 
laid until B.C. 332, and it was nearly or quite a century 
after that, before it began to be felt as a radiating power 
in philosophy; and this was two hundred years after 
Malachi had written the final Old-Testament page, and 
more than three hundred after the latest utterance (that of 
Daniel) which I have quoted from the Old Testament on 
the question at issue, and more than eight hundred after 

1 " The Doctrine of Endless Punishment for the Sins of this Life 
Unchristian and Unreasonable," by llev. Thomas Starr King-. Boston, 

1858, p. 22. 



TESTIMONY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 57 

David had written, "the wicked shall be turned into sheol, 
and all the nations that forget God." While it is clear 
to the slightest examination, that the passages of the 
Apocrypha to which he refers, — which I have just quoted 
above, — are less clear and decided, as expressions of a 
belief in future retribution, than many which we have 
found having their place in the Psalms and the Proverbs 
and the Prophets, centuries before the name of the city of 
Alexandria was ever syllabled from mortal lips. It would, 
in point of fact, be a much easier task to prove that 
Alexandria learned its doctrine from Jerusalem, than that 
Jerusalem imported hers from Alexandria. 

We are prepared, then, to say, in answer to the ques- 
tion, What is the doctrine of the Old Testament in regard 
to the future state of the impenitent, that, conforming to 
the immature and only gradually advancing condition of 
the Jewish mind, the Hebrew Scriptures very gradually, 
and at the best dimly, and yet with growing distinctness, 
did convey to the Hebrew nation the great ideas of immor- 
tality, and of future punishment for the wicked, and reward 
for the righteous. That nation had actually received those 
ideas from them, and had wrought them radically into its 
theology, before the Christian era. And such — with the 
exception of the inconsiderable sect of the infidel Saddu- 
cees — was the decided conviction, though perhaps not 
very intelligent or intelligible to themselves, of the Jewish 
people when Christ came. 



58 VERDICT OF REASON. 

I do not claim that the fact, that the Jews when Christ 
came did actually believe in the future punishment of the 
wicked, establishes either the truth of the doctrine, or 
renders it certain that they took it from the Law, the 
Prophets, and the Psalms. But I do claim, that the 
fact of such belief greatly hightens the probability that 
we are right in understanding those writings as really 
teaching what we have seen that they seem to teach, while 
I insist that this universal belief, which, from some cause, 
had worked its way into the substructure of the actual 
theology of the nation to whom Christ preached, is of the 
greatest consequence to be always and everywhere remem- 
bered in the interpretation of his words. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. 



WE pass next to the inquiry, What was the actual 
teaching of our Saviour on this question of the 
future punishment of the wicked ? 

But here we are met in the outset by the objection that 
our New Testament gives us but the most fragmentary 
record of the utterances of Christ upon eternal subjects, 
and that since, in his humanity, he shared the oriental 
temperament, his language ought not to be pressed to that 
degree of literal interpretation which would be allowable 
in the construction of the dry decree of a court, or the 
formal act of a legislature. 

Grant both of these, for argument's sake, and it will 
still remain imperishably true, that our Saviour did teach 
some doctrine (however fragmentary in form, and however 
poetic) ; and that his solicitude for men was such as to 
make him greatly desire that they should not be misled 
in eternal things, and his intelligence such that he could 
not fail to perceive the drift of their minds under the 
circumstances in which they were addressed by him. 

59 



60 VERDICT OF REASON. 

Doubtless, we shall all agree that he both knew whether 
the doctrine of future eternal punishment is true or false, 
and knew that it must be of consequence to human wel- 
fare for men to know; and — since he was divinely honest 
— we have a right to suppose that he shaped his words 
(however fragmentary, and however poetic) in such a way 
that they would not tend to mislead the multitude, whose 
welfare he desired with a desire which led him to the 
cross. 

These things are indisputably true : — 

1. Christ knew that the vast majority of all whom he 
addressed, — the few Sadducees excepted, who, being 
rich and exclusive, seldom came into contact with him, — 
did believe that the wicked will be punished in the future 
world. Whether they got that doctrine from Moses and 
the prophets, from Alexandria, or from some other source, 
they had it, and held it. 

2. He was himself a Universalist, or (for neutrality 
on such a question is impossible) a believer in the doctrine 
of an eternal hell for those who die in sin. 

3. As one who knew all things, and loved men, even 
so much as to lay down his life that they might live, he 
not only knew that the truth on that subject was of great 
consequence, but he must have had a most earnest desire 
that all might come to the knowledge of that truth, and 
act in view of it. 

4. Such being the facts, for him to say nothing about 



THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. 61 

the doctrine before his Jewish audiences, while discussing 
the great realities which shape the soul's destinies, would 
have been to have sealed to their minds its truth by the 
consent of his silence. 

5. Such being the facts, further, for him to have spoken 
casually of the doctrine without condemnation would have 
been to give it, before the Jewish mind, the benefit of 
his manifested consideration, with the natural seeming of 
agreement with it. 

6. Such being the facts, still further, whenever he did 
utter himself directly upon that question, his language 
must necessarily take on the force of the fullest and 
clearest indorsement of the doctrine, of which his words 
could be capable, unless he in terms opposed it ; because, 
under the circumstances, he must have intended to in- 
dorse, unless he did oppose it. 

We may illustrate his position, with the inferences which 
it necessitates, thus : suppose a teacher of political econ- 
omy to have visited Charleston, S.C. in the first year of 
the Rebellion, where he would have found the people — 
without visible exception — - earnest advocates of State 
rights and of secession. In lecturing upon his favorite 
science there and then, for him to say nothing about the 
State-rights' theory, or to refer to it by any words of indi- 
rection, would be practically to indorse it. Nothing short 
of the language of direct attack would be taken, in such 
a position, in evidence of dissent from the drift of the 



62 VERDICT OF REASON. 

general mind, — language which, must have left instant 
traces on the records of the time, of bitter, perhaps bloody, 
answer. 

So, when Christ was in Jerusalem, the Jews were no 
Universalists. If he had been one, he must necessarily 
teach like one, and his teaching would stand out into relief 
upon the background of their dissent. 

With these obvious principles in mind, we need not go 
amiss in our interpretation of what Jesus actually did say 
upon the question before us; and we will proceed to 
glance, in chronological order, at every recorded word of 
his having obvious reference thereto. 1 

The conversation with Nicodemus is the first recorded 
instance of any utterance upon it. 2 Christ urges upon this 
rabbi of the Jews the necessity of being born again, be- 
cause, without it, one can not see the kingdom of God, — a 
phrase, which, unquestionably, was understood by Nico- 
demus to include reference to future life in heaven. And 
this inference must necessarily have been encouraged in 
his mind by Christ's subsequent remarks : That the Son 
of man must be "lifted up," like the serpent in the 
wilderness, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life : for God so loved the 
world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever 

1 The order is that of Dr. Robinson's " Harmony," and Prof. 
Greenleaf's " Testimony of the Four Evangelists." 

2 John iii. 1-21. 



THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. 63 

belie veth in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life ; adding, that God sent his Son that the world might 
through him he saved. Here is, obviously, running 
through all this conversation the clear intimation of future 
remediless danger, from which one course only — that of 
belief in Christ — can save the world. Christ knew that 
Nicodemus was a Pharisee. Even Universalists admit 
t mt the Jews, and particularly the Pharisees, at the time 
of Christ, did believe in future punishment, though they 
think they got their faith from Alexandria, and not from the 
Old Testament. But for this matter, it made no differ- 
ence whence Nicodemus got his faith in future punishment ; 
he evidently must have had it, and Christ must have 
known that he had it, and must have known whether it 
was true or false, and must have known that, if it were 
false, it ought to be rebuked, — and yet, in the face of all 
this knowledge, he tells him that if he is not born again 
he must perish. Now, we may call Christ incoherent, or 
poetical, or what we please ; but, unless we call him 
dishonest, I think we must, under these circumstances, 
admit that he did intend to encourage (certainly did not 
intend to ^courage) the faith of Nicodemus — as a 
Pharisee — in future punishment. 

Significant also are the words of the Samaritans of 
Shechem, when, after Christ had preached there two days, 
subsequently to his interview with the woman at Jacob's 
well, they said, " Now we believe ; for we have heard 



64 VERDICT OF REASON. 

him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, 
the Saviour of the world." 1 Had he not taught them, 
then, that the world was lost without him, and so far as it 
should withhold faith in him ? 

The next record is at the pool of Bethesda, where Jesus 
healed the infirm man on the Sabbath clay. 2 The act 
disturbed the Jews, who raised a tumult against him. He 
seized the opportunity to address them, defending himself 
for saying that God was his Father, and adding (remem- 
ber that this was a crowd of Pharisees, who believed in 
future punishment, and whose error, if Christ were a 
Universalist, he was bound to rebuke), "Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, he that heareth my word and belie veth 
on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not 
come into condemnation, &c. The hour is coming, and 
now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of 
God; and they that hear shall live, &c. The hour is 
coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear 
his voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done good 
unto the resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil 
unto the resurrection of damnation." Now, as I said 
before, we may call this poetry, or we may call it prose ; 
but, if we call it the sincere utterance of an honest voice, 
we are driven to believe that our Lord himself believed 
and taught the future punishment of the wicked. 

l John iv. 42. 2 John v. 1-47. 



THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. 65 

Next comes the Sermon on the Mount. 1 Throughout, 
— especially when you interpret it in the necessary re- 
collection of the fact that Christ was speaking to those 
who had been trained to believe in future punishment, 
and must therefore have been predisposed to interpret his 
language into coincidence with that belief, — this sermon 
is veined by thoughts that look and lean that way. The 
opening beatitudes, in their glorious promise of comfort 
and heaven for the possessors of the virtues which they 
catalogue, perpetually intimate a darker alternative for 
those who lack them. The remark that saving righteous- 
ness must exceed the strict, technical, yet hollow right- 
eousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, in order to ' ' enter 
into the kingdom of heaven," surely has no look like that 
of censure for their faith of hell for the wicked. So all 
those striking precepts, which affirm and re-affirm the need 
of a more thorough and genuine excellence of character 
than that which the Pharisees possessed, would naturally 
highten their old impression of the uncertainty of future 
salvation. Then the distinct command, "Enter ye in at the 
narrow gate, 2 — for wide is the gate and broad is the way 

1 Matthew v. 1 to vii. 29 ; Luke vi. 20-49. 

2 T?;f arevrjg ttvTitjg. [tes stenes pules.] This adjective, crrjvog 
[stZnos], is the epithet which Herodotus uses (B. 7. 223) to describe that 
narrow and difficult pass, in a rugged and mountainous country, where 
Leonidas fell at Thermopylae. It includes the two ideas of narrowness 
and difficulty; that is, it pictures a path which is not only unfriendly 
to travel because of its confined dimensions, but because of its rough 

obstacles. 

5 



66 VERDICT OF REASON. 

that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in 
thereat ; because narrow is the gate and narrow the way 
that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it 77 — 
contains — most of all to that audience — the unmistakable 
announcement of our Saviour's belief in the future punish_ 
ment of the wicked. And that revelation is confirmed by 
the illustrations that follow : of the burning of fruitless 
trees ; of the exclusion from the kingdom of heaven of 
those who merely say, " Lord, Lord; " and by the fear- 
ful, final image of the dreadful ruin of the house that 
was not founded on a rock. 

Next in chronological order occurs the healing of the 
centurion's servant, with the Saviour's remark, — called 
out by the faith which the centurion, as a Gentile, exhibited 
beyond any yet seen in Israel, — " I say unto you that many 
shall come from the east and west, and shall sit clown with 
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven ; 
but the children of the kingdom shall be cast into outer 
darkness, — there shall be weeping and gnashing of 
teeth." 1 Doubtless, modern ingenuity can explain this 
text into some reference consistent with the system of 
Universalism. But the real questions are, What did 
those to whom Christ made the remark understand by 
it ? and how did he mean them to understand it, — ques- 
tions whose honest answers can not fail to give us the 
passage. 

1 Matthew viii. 11-13. 



THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. 67 

Next on the record are those words of upbraiding, in 
which Christ reproached "the cities wherein most of 
his mighty works were done," because they repented not. 1 
They are vague in their anathema, yet, as I conceive, it 
must have been impossible to dissever them, in the minds 
of the listening Jews, from distinct reference to the doom 
of hell. 

Next is the healing of the demoniac, followed by the 
blasphemy of the Scribes and Pharisees, and the Saviour's 
consequent declaration: "Verily I say unto you, all 
sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphe- 
mies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme ; but he that 
shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never for- 
giveness, hut is in danger of eternal damnation. And 
whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it 
shall be forgiven him ; but whosoever speaketh against 
the Holy Ghost, it shall not he forgiven him, neither in 
this world, neither in the world to come." 2 Does this 
sound like the language which an honest Universalist 
would utter in the ears of those whom he knew mis- 
takenly believed in future endless punishment, and whom 
he wished to convert from that error to its opposite 
truth? 

Next comes the discourse called out by his dining with 
a Pharisee, and the discussion that followed in reference 
to their ceremonial rites. 3 What does Christ say now, 

1 Matthew xi. 20-30. 2 Mark iii. 20-30. 3 Luke xi. 37-54. 



68 VERDICT OF REASON. 

when he expressly takes it upon him to rebuke and de- 
nounce their errors? " Woe unto you, Pharisees, for ye 
tithe mint and rue, and all manner of herbs, and pass over 
judgment and the love of God." Does he rebuke their 
belief in future punishment as an error ? Hear him : 
" Fear him, which, after he hath killed hath power to cast 
into hell, yea, I say unto you, fear him." . "He that 
denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels 
of God*" "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise 
perish." 

Next we have the parable of the tares, with its inter- 
pretation, ending, " As therefore the tares are gathered 
and burned in the fire ; so shall it be in the end of this 
world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and 
they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, 
and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a 
furnace of fire : there shall be wailing and gnashing of 
teeth." 1 Take away, now, as much as you please of the 
drapery of this, and put it to the account of the rhetorical 
tendencies of Jesus, can you make it the doctrine of a 
Universalist ? Must there not remain, underneath all 
drapery, the honest, earnest purpose to arouse the sinner 
to alarm with reference to the future? 

So also, on the same occasion, explaining his parable of 
the net with the bad fish thrown away, Christ says, " So 
shall it be at the end of the world : the angels shall come 

1 Matthew xiii. 24-53; Mark iv. 26-34. 



THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. 69 

forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall 
cast them into the furnace of fire : there shall be wailing, 
and gnashing of teeth." 

Next, we come to Christ's sending forth his twelve apos- 
tles to teach and to preach throughout Judaea. We have 
seen, that, so far as the record shows, he has never yet 
intimated to those apostles that the belief of the endless 
punishment of the wicked in the future world which, as 
Jews, they had previously held, was an erroneous one ; 
but, on the contrary, has always encouraged it, and inti- 
mated that it was his own. And now that he formally 
sends them out as Christian teachers, enumerating the doc- 
trines which he desires them to preach everywhere, is Uni- 
versalism one of them ? There is certainly no precept to 
them to teach it. But we find more than one distinct 
reference to its opposite, as being truth. He exhorts them 
— in allusion to the perils that might encompass them — 
" Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to 
kill the soul : but rather fear Him which is able to destroy 
both soul and body in hell ; " x and encourages them by 
the assurance that "he that endureth to the end shall be 
saved. 2 

We have, soon after this, the detail of a discourse of 
some length in the synagogue at Capernaum, 3 in which, in 
answer to repeated inquiries, our Saviour develops his 
views in regard to human salvation. Yet here he says 

1 Matthew x. 28. 2 Matthew x. 22. 3 John vi. 22-71. 



70 VERDICT OF REASON. 

nothing of Universalism, but everywhere guards his words 
as if hell threatened all men, and deliverance from it could 
only be obtained through faith in him : ' ' Labor for that 
meat which endure th unto everlasting life." " Every one 
which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have ever- 
lasting life." " Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my 
blood hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at the last 
day." And when many of his disciples called this "an 
hard saying," and murmured at it, Jesus did not relieve 
their dissatisfaction by preaching any less distasteful doc- 
trine, but re-affirmed his words, and let them go. And 
they " walked no more with him." 

Not long after this, Jesus said unto his disciples, " If 
any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and 
take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save 
his life shall lose it ; and whosoever will lose his life for 
my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he 
shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ; or what 
shall a man give in exchange for his soul? " 1 From one 
whose previous teaching had been what we have seen 
Christ's to be, to those whose previous training had been 
what it is impossible not to believe that of the disciples had 
been, how unmistakably does this imply, and rest its 
whole weight upon, the doctrine of an eternal hell ! 

We next come to the account given 2 of the strife among 
the disciples, which should be greatest in the kingdom of 

1 Matthew xvi. 24-26. 2 Matthew xviii. 1-35. 



THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. 71 

heaven, and the rebuke of Jesus, who took a little child 
and said, " Except ye be converted, and become as little 
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven ; " 
adding, subsequently, the recommendation to avoid every 
obstacle in the way of salvation, and even urging to cut off 
the members of the body, if they cause sin, — since it is 
better to enter maimed into eternal life, than "to be cast 
into everlasting fire." 

A second time * Christ sent forth his followers, now the 
seventy, to teach and to preach, and in his commission 
again he instructed them to exhibit the danger of refusing 
to repent, and declared that Capernaum, for its neglect of 
his word, should be " thrust down to hell." 

We next find him reproving the unbelieving Jews at 
Jerusalem, and saying, " Ye shall die in your sins : whith- 
er I go, ye can not come," 2 — an utterance which, to their 
ears, inevitably predicted eternal punishment. 

Our next record 3 is of Christ's answer to one who came 
to him as he was journeying for the last time toward Jeru- 
salem, and, as if to draw him out on this very point in 
controversy among us, said, " Lord, are there few that be 
saved?" His remarkable answer was: " Agonize, 4 to 

1 Lukex. 1-16. 2 John viii. 12-59. 3 Luke xiii. 22-35. 

4 The Greek word is 'Ayavl&o&e (agonizesthe). It is a word taken 
from the gladiatorial games, applying to their contests there j and 
means " struggle as for life." It is the word from which our verb 
agonize, and its noun agony, were derived. 



72 VERDICT OF REASON. 

enter in at the narrow * gate : for many, I say unto you, 
will seek to enter in, and shall not he able ;" and then he 
goes on to picture the scene, at the end of time, when bad 
men shall knock at the door of heaven for admission, only to 
get the answer : * 'Depart from me, all ye workers of iniqui- 
ty ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye 
shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets 
in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." 
Strip this of all its poetry, if it has any ; does it look like 
the honest attempt of an honest Universalist to preach Uni- 
versalism to the Jews who believed in future punishment 
as an imported Alexandrian error ? 

Next in order 2 we have the parable of Lazarus and the 
rich man, in which Christ, for the purpose of illustration, 
seizes hold of the current Jewish idea of sheol, and pictures 
Lazarus as entering the portion assigned to the good, and 
the rich man sinking into its scorching depths, and thus 
vividly depicts the contrasted results of worldliness and 
piety ; without, indeed, affirming any thing with reference 
to the accuracy of this imagery, yet most certainly, in gen- 
eral, sanctioning the current Jewish idea of the impossi- 
bility of the restoration of the wicked. 

Next, in the account of the rich young man, 3 we find 
Jesus remarking to his disciples upon the extreme improb- 
ability of the salvation of the rich, and to their astonished 

l See p. 65. 2 Luke xvi. 19-31. 

3 Matthew xix. 16-30 ; Mark x. 17-31 ; Luke xviii. 18-30. 



THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. 73 

query, " How, then, anybody could be saved," replying 
that "with God all things are possible." 

So, in the parable of the wicked husbandmen, 1 we find 
Christ strongly urging the idea, that those who reject him 
must be for ever lost : ' ' He will miserably destroy those 
wicked men." And he goes on immediately to press the 
idea in the same parable of the marriage of the king's son, 2 
where the man who presented himself without a wedding 
garment was bound hand and foot and taken away and cast 
into outer darkness : where shall be weeping and gnashing 
of teeth, "for many are called, but few are chosen" 3 

On the same day we find Christ denouncing the Phari- 
sees and their opinions. 4 But he does not denounce their 
belief in the eternal punishment of the wicked ; does not 
intimate that it is an error ; but, on the contrary, after re- 
buking their formality and hypocrisy, he thunders out : 
" Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape 
the damnation of hell ? " * 

We come next to Christ's prediction of the judgmentr 
day, 5 to which he was led by a natural transition from his 
announcement of the impending destruction of Jerusalem. 
And here he says, in preliminary parable, that the un- 

1 Matthew xxi. 33-46 5 Mark xii. 1-12 3 Luke xx.9-19. 

2 Matthew xxii. 1-14. 

3 He had used this precise expression a short time before ; see Mat- 
thew xx. 16. 

4 Matthew xxiii. 13-39 ', Mark xii. 40 3 Luke xx. 47. 

5 Matthew xxiv, 43-51 ; xxv, 1-46. 



74 VERDICT OF REASON. 

watchful and unprofitable servants shall be cast ' ' into outer 
darkness ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth ; " 
and then draws the picture of the great last tribunal ; all 
nations gathered ; the angels attending ; the Judge on the 
throne ; the righteous on the right hand accepted, and the 
Judge saying to those on the left, " Depart from me, ye 
cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his 
angels'; " summing up by the observation : " These shall 
go away into nblaaiv altoviov (kolasin aionion, punishment 
everlasting) ; but the righteous into &rjv aluviov (zoen 
aionion, life everlasting)." 

Of this adjective al&vioc, — here used to bound and 
describe both the life of the good and the punishment of 
the bad, — it is enough in this connection to say, that, 
whatever may be its possible meanings, our special con- 
cern is with its actual sense as habitually used by the 
writers of the New Testament. 

It is employed seventy-two times in the New Testa- 
ment. In four instances, it is loosely used as an adjective 
describing long past events, as where it is translated " Be- 
fore the world began," 1 &c. ; in two instances it is usecj 
to represent a complete eternity, without beginning or 
end, — once of God, and once of Christ. In eight in- 
stances it refers to an eternal future, as " The things which 
are not seen are eternal." 2 In seven instances it is ap- 
plied to the future of Christ's kingdom, as, "The ever- 

1 2 Timothy i. 9. 2 2 Corinthians iv. 18. 



THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. 75 

lasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." * 
In forty-four instances it describes the unending life of the 
good, and in the remaining seven instances it similarly 
describes the unending death of the wicked. * There is 
absolutely no indication, in its New-Testament use, that, 
in the passage under consideration, or any similar one, 
it was intended to include any limit to its significance. 
And, whatever that significance may be, it is clear that 
Christ here attaches it as effectually to the life of the 
good as to the death of the bad ; so that, if the latter 
be limited, the former must be also. 

In his conversation with his disciples, after the institu- 
tion of the Lord's Supper, before they went out to Greth- 
semane, the Saviour — still referring to the doctrine which 
he had found in existence among the Jews, and which his 
teaching had never assailed, but often strengthened — de- 
clared to them, "If a man abide not in me, he is cast 
forth as a branch, and is withered ; and men gather them, 
and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." 2 And 
in the prayer which followed, 3 he said of them, " None 
of them is lost, but (Judas) the son of perdition," is 
lost ; of whom a little while before he had affirmed, that 
* l it had been good for that man if he had not been 
born," — language which it seems impossible to justify, 
if the feet of the apostate, after never so weary a pil- 

l 2 Peter i. 11. 2 John xv. 6. 

3 John xvii. 1-26. 



76 VERDICT OF REASON. 

grimage through perdition, are, at last, to stand on the 
golden pavement of heaven. 

On his way to the cross, Christ told the daughters of 
Jerusalem -that the days are coming when the unbelieving 
shall try in vain to hide under the hills and behind the 
mountains, from the vengeance of God. 1 

And, after his resurrection, as he was about to ascend 
up where he was before, we find him re-affirming the entire 
teaching of his life on this subject, in the final command 
to his disciples: " Go ye into all the world, and preach 
the gospel to every creature. He that belie veth and is 
baptized shall be saved, and he that helieveth not shall be 
damned. " 2 

And John afterward, summing up the whole matter, 
says of his record of the teachings of the Saviour, " These 
are written, that ye (all future generations) might believe 
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believ- 
ing ye might have life, through his name" 3 which is in 
itself an assertion of his undoubting faith, that eternal life 
is possible only to those who escape eternal death by faith 
in the mercy of God through the crucified one ; and yet 
John was the beloved and intimate disciple, who must be 
supposed thoroughly to have known, and faithfully to have 
reported, the views of his great Master. 

Such are the words of Jesus upon the question before 
us. They are all the words of his which the Holy Spirit 

1 Luke xxiii. 30. 2 Mark xvi. 15-16. 3 John xx. 31. 



THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. 77 

thought it important should be recorded bearing directly 
upon it. They are all on one side of that question. 
They settle the aspect of Christianity toward it. Not 
one of them — when we remember that they were uttered 
to those who believed in future eternal punishment, and 
whom, if wrong in that belief, it must have been our 
Saviour's first great desire to correct in reference to it — 
is susceptible even of ambiguity. They are scattered 
through all his active years, journeys, teachings. They 
increase in solemn earnestness as he drew near the end of 
his career. They culminate their distinctness and their 
strength in his final words to his disciples. 

If any man can prove by them that Jesus Christ was 
a Universalist, by the same process he may prove, from 
their writings and history, that George Washington and 
Abraham Lincoln were traitors, and Benedict Arnold and 
Jefferson Davis and John Wilkes Booth, true men and 
patriots. 

The only way to avoid the conclusion, that Christ be- 
lieved and taught the eternal punishment of those who die 
impenitent, is to deny that the New Testament can be 
depended upon as giving a fair and trustworthy account 
of his views and teachings. This was the view taken by 
Theodore Parker. He said, "To me it is quite clear 
that Jesus taught the doctrine of eternal damnation, if the 
evangelists — the first three, I mean — are to he treated 



78 VERDICT OF REASON. 

as inspired. I can understand his language in no other 
way. 

"But as the Protestant sects start with the notion, 
which to me is a monstrous one, that the words of the 
New Testament are all miraculously inspired of God, and 
so infallibly true ; and as the doctrine of eternal damna- 
tion is so revolting to all the human and moral feelings of 
our nature, men said the Word must be interpreted in 
another way. 

"So, as the Unitarians have misinterpreted the New 
Testament to prove that the Christos of the Fourth Gos- 
pel had no pre-existence, the Universalists have misinter- 
preted passages of the Gospels to show that Jesus of Naz- 
areth never taught eternal damnation." x 

So the same frank writer has confessed, in one of his 
elaborate treatises, " It is vain to deny, or attempt to con- 
ceal, the errors in his [Jesus'] doctrine, — a revengeful 
God, a Devil absolutely evil, an eternal Hell," &c. " He 
considers God so imperfect as to damn the majority of men 
to eternal torment." " Hell is eternal, and the wide road 
thereto is traveled well." 2 

Entirely equivalent to this is the admission of Rev. 
Thomas Starr King: "I freely say that I do not find 
the doctrine of the ultimate salvation of all souls clearly 

1 In a letter to Rev. N. Adams, D.D., printed in Evenings with the 
Doctrines, p. 402. 

2 Discourse on Matters pertaining to Religion, pp. 239-243. 



THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. 79 

stated in any text or in any discourse that has been re- 
ported from the lips of Christ." * 

To these may be added the later admissions of M. 
Renan. He says, in describing the faith and teaching of 
Jesus, " The others [the wicked] will go into Gehenna. 
Gehenna was the valley west of Jerusalem. At various 
periods the worship of fire had been practiced in it, and 
the place had become a sort of cloaca. 2 Gehenna is, 
therefore, in the mind of Jesus, a dismal valley, foul and 
full of fire. Those excluded from the kingdom will be 
burned and gnawed by worms, in company with Satan and 
his rebel angels. There, then, shall be weeping and gnash- 
ing of teeth. The kingdom of God will be like a closed 
hell, lighted up within, in the midst of this world of dark- 
ness and of torments. This new order of things will be 
eternal. Paradise and Gehenna shall have no end. . . . 

" That all this was understood literally by the disciples 
and the Master himself, at certain moments, stands forth 
absolutely evidenced in the writings of the time." 3 

We are grateful for these admissions. 4 Coming from 
men whose bias and desire were against them, they share 
the eminent value of " declarations against interest" in 

1 Two Sermons, p. 5. 

2 A receptacle of all manner of filth. 

3 Life of Jesus, p. 243. 

4 Thomas Paine, J. S. Hittell, and other infidels have made similar 
concessions, and denied the New Testament because it does teach the 
doctrine of future punishment. Age of Reason, ed. 1796, part i. p. 18. 
Evidences against Cliristianity, i. pp. 121-127. 



80 VERDICT OF REASON. 

testimony; which the lawyers tell us "are entitled to 
claim extreme improbability of falsehood." 1 

I maintain, then, as the result of this examination of 
his words, that Jesus Christ believed and taught the doc- 
trine of the eternal punishment of those who die in sin. 
His language goes beyond the mere avowal of future 
punishment ; it requires for its honest interpretation, the 
theory that that punishment will never die. The word 
"perish" [anolXvfu — apollumi~\ 2 means to be destroyed 
thoroughly, and without any hope of relief. The expres- 
sion " eternal damnation," must have been understood by 
Christ's hearers to imply an irremediable and unceasing 
woe ; and if he intended to teach that doctrine, he could 
use no other stronger words by which to enforce it. It is, 
therefore, under the circumstances, impossible to believe 
that our Saviour acted in good faith toward those whom 
he addressed, unless he intended that they should under- 
stand him as teaching that the state of the lost admits of 
no recovery. And, if he taught thus, that doctrine, fear- 
ful as it is, must be true, and we are bound to believe it, 
and govern ourselves accordingly. 

1 Greenleaf on the Law of Evidence, i. 198. 

2 aTroTikvfM is compounded of oKkuyLi, which means " to destroy ," 
" to make an end of," and ano implying " completeness," "thorough- 
ness;" so that the compound word means " thoroughly to destroy," 
" utterly to make an end of." 



CHAPTER V. 

THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 

HAVING- seen that the common belief of the Jews 
when Christ came, was, that the wicked would be 
punished in the future world for ever ; and that our Saviour 
never contradicted, but, on the other hand, indorsed and 
re-affirmed that belief, let us now advance to the inquiry, 
What was the attitude of the apostles towards the doctrine ? 

We may well infer what that would be. The stream 
can not rise higher than its fountain. If Christ recognized 
and re-affirmed, again and again, the existing Jewish faith, 
that the persistently bad will be eternally punished here- 
after, it is not very probable that we shall find the apostles 
reversing his teaching, and uttering Universalism. Nor, 
on the other hand, since the future punishment of the 
wicked was one of the few doctrines upon which they and 
the Jews were agreed, shall we be likely to find it much 
dwelt upon by them, except in the way of occasional ur- 
gency of argument. Let us glance over the record. 

It is obvious, on the very face of the Acts and the 
Epistles, that the great idea of Christianity, as a scheme 

6 81 



82 VERDICT OF REASON. 

of salvation through Christ, was the burden of apostolic 
preaching ; which implies the faith, on their part, that, out 
of Christ, man can not escape perdition. Peter's sermon 
at Pentecost presses the point, that " whosoever shall call 
on the name of the Lord shall be saved." 1 And when, a 
few days after, he addressed the people, after the healing 
of the lame man, he declared : " And it shall come to pass 
that every soul which will not hear that prophet (Jesus) 
shall be destroyed from among the people." 2 And when 
he subsequently spoke to the Sanhedrim, he said of Christ, 
* ' Neither is there salvation in any other ; for there is none 
other name under heaven given among men, whereby we 
must be saved." 3 And so, when, visiting Cornelius by di- 
vine command, he had preached Christ to him, he says, 4 
it was that he and all his house might ' ' be saved ; ' ' and 
then we read that all the apostles and brethren glorified 
God because, contrary to their first expectation, he had 
now visibly granted unto the Gentiles also "repentance 
unto life" 

Some five years after, we find Paul gone on a mission 
into Asia Minor. At Antioch, in Pisidia, 5 he preached to 
the people salvation through Christ, accompanied with this 
warning, if they rejected him: "Beware, therefore, lest 
that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets ; 
behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish, &c." So, 

1 Acts ii. 21. 2 Acts iii. 23. 3 Acts iv. 12. 

4 Acts xi. 14. 6 Acts xiii. 14-50. 



THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 83 

on the next Sabbath, he preached to " almost the whole 
city," and, when the Jews contradicted and blasphemed, 
Paul said, " Seeing ye put it from you and judge yourselves 
unworthy of everlasting life, lo ! we turn to the Gen- 
tiles ; " and then follows the record, of the Gentiles there : 
" As many as were ordained to eternal life believed." 

Next in order of time comes in Paul's Epistle to the 
Galatians. Of this he devotes a portion to an earnest per- 
suasion to them to lay hold upQn the life and hope of the 
gospel, saying, — as an argument why they should " walk 
after the spirit, " — of those who were guilty of the sins of 
the flesh, " Of the which I tell you before, as I have told 
you in time past, that they which do such things shall not 
inherit the kingdom of God," 1 and adding the solemn 
warning, "Be not deceived: God is not mocked. For 
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap ; for he 
that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, 
but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life 
everlasting." 2 

So, in his first Epistle to the Thessalonians, he encour- 
ages believers by saying, " God hath not appointed us to 
wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." 3 
And, in the second Epistle, which soon followed, he makes 
it a special point to urge the danger of future punishment 
as an argument, declaring 4 that ' ' the Lord Jesus shall be 

1 Galatians v. 21. 2 Galatians vi. 7. 

3 l Thessalonians v. 9. 4 2 Thessalonians i. 8*9. 



84 VERDICT OF REASON. 

revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming 
fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and 
that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the 
presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power ; " 
adding, further on, the assertion of God's pleasure that 
" They all might be damned who believed not the truth, 
but had pleasure in unrighteousness." * 

About a. d. 57, Paul first writes to the Corinthians. In 
the course of his letter, denouncing certain false teachers, 
and the fruits of their instructions, he says, " Know ye not 
that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? 
Be not deceived, neither fornicators nor idolaters nor 
adulterers, &c. shall inherit the kingdom of God." 2 

Some two years after, Paul writes to the Romans. It 
is impossible here to do justice to the absolute entireness 
of conviction, and energy of reasoning with which the 
apostle, through that whole epistle, asserts, directly and in- 
directly, the doctrine of future punishment. It begins by 
a dark picture of heathen vice, and then accuses the Jews 
of similar guilt, saying, "Thinkest thou this, man, that 
judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, 
that thou shalt escape the judgment of God ? or despisest 
thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long- 
suffering ; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth 
[was intended to lead] thee to repentance ? But, after thy 

l 2 Thessalonians iii. 12. 2 l Corinthians vi. 9-10. 



THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 85 

hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself 
wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the right- 
eous judgment of God ; who will render to every man ac- 
cording to his deeds : to them who, by patient continuance 
in well-doing, seek for glory and honor and immortality, 
eternal life ; but unto them that are contentious and do 
not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation 
and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of 
man that doeth evil ; of the Jew first, and also of the Gen- 
tile." * He then adds : " There is no respect of persons 
with God ; for as many as have sinned without law shall 
also perish without law ; and as many as have sinned in the 
law shall be judged by the law." So, further on, 2 he asks, 
"Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?" and 
answers, " God forbid ! for then how shall God judge the 
world ? ' ' And then he urges 3 that God especially mani- 
fests his love in the fact, that, " while we were yet sinners, 
Christ died for us," that we maybe "saved from wrath 
through him; " adding the assurance, that Christ's atone- 
ment is as broad in its possibilities and offers of salvation 
as Adam's offence was in its entailment of condemnation : 
4 ' Therefore as by the offence of one, judgment came upon 
all men to condemnation, even so, by the righteousness of 
one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of 
life," — so that though the impenitent, as a matter of fact, 
will eternally die, it is yet possible for all men, if they 

1 Romans ii. 3-9. 2 Romans iii. 5. 3 Romans v. 



86 VERDICT OF REASON. 

would, to exercise penitence, and gain everlasting life. A 
little further on he refers again to the same familiar truth, 
" For the end of those things (iniquities) is death. But 
now, being made free from sin, &c.,ye have your end, 
everlasting life ; for the wages £f sin is death, &c. ; " 1 and 
again he reminds them : " If ye live after the flesh, ye 
shall die ; " 2 and again he speaks of wicked men as " ves- 
sels of wrath fitted to destruction." 3 

Some six or eight years after this, while in custody at 
Rome, Paul writes his epistles to the Ephesians, Colos- 
sians, Philippians, and Hebrews, to Philemon, and the Sec- 
ond to Timothy, all teaching no other doctrine than that 
so often before affirmed ; and which is, on fit occasions, re- 
affirmed in them. Thus, to the Ephesians, he said of cer- 
tain notorious offenders, 4 that no such person " hath any 
inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God," and 
adds : ' ' Let no man deceive you with vain words ; for be- 
cause of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the 
children of disobedience." And to the Philippians, he 
says, of the enemies of the cross of Christ, " whose end is 
destruction." 5 And to the Hebrews, " If we sin willfully 
after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, 
there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain 
fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, which 
shall devour the adversaries." 6 

l Romans vi. 21-23. 2 Romans viii. 13. 3 Romans ix. 22. 
4 Ephesians v. 5. 5 Philippians iii. 19. 6 Hebrews x. 2G-27. 



THE TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTLES. 87 

So much for the testimony of Paul. With his intense 
devotion to that Saviour whom he saw " as one horn out of 
due time," we knew that he could not be a Universalist, and 
we have found that he was not one, but that he lost no 
proper opportunity to warn men, as his Master had done, 
to flee from the wrath to come. 

The Epistles of Peter and James and Jude, and the 
writings of John, remain. They all bear deep the same 
stamp of Christ's doctrine. Peter says, 1 " God spared not 
the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and 
delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto 
judgment," and "the Lord knoweth how to deliver the 
godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto 
the day of judgment to be punished ;" and again he 
declares : 2 " The heavens and the earth which are now, by 
the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against 
the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. ' ' James 
declares that 3 "he which converteth a sinner from the 
error of his ways shall save a soul from death;" Jude 4 
repeats Peter's testimony in reference to the doom of the 
fallen angels, and testifies that the sinners of the old world 
are " set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of 
eternal fire," and says of corrupt church-members, that 
they are " wandering stars to whom is reserved the black- 
ness of darkness for ever." And John, in the Apocalypse, 

12 Peter ii. 4, 9. 2 2 Peter iii. 7. 

3 James v. 20. 4 Jude 6-13. 



88 VERDICT OF REASON. 

says of the wicked, "And the smoke of their torment 
ascendeth up for ever and ever, and they have no rest day 
nor night," and testifies of " that great city the holy Jeru- 
salem," that there shall " in nowise enter into it any thing 
that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or 
maketh a lie ; but they which are written in the Lamb's 
book of life," * and describes the law of the future world as 
being, " He that is unjust, let him be unjust still ; and he 
which is filthy, let him be filthy still ; and he that is right- 
eous, let him be righteous still ; and he that is holy, let 
him be holy still." 2 

Such — if my success has equalled my intent — is a 
perfectly fair and honest digest of the opinions and pre- 
cepts of those who taught by inspiration, after Christ 
ascended, upon the subject under discussion. I have 
inserted no word of an opposite character — such as a 
Universalist teacher in their place would have been likely 
to promulge — only because I have found none. Nor 
have I dwelt at length upon their precepts, or attempted 
to quote largely from them, because I only desired to 
show that they did not depart from the position of their 
great Master. We have seen what his was, and we now 
see that it was theirs also. 

1 Revelation xiv. 11. 2 Revelation xxii. 11. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

THE MORE INDIRECT TESTIMONIES OF THE BIBLE. 

WE have seen that the Old Testament announces, 
as directly as was natural to its time and office, 
the doctrine of the future eternal punishment of the wicked; 
and we have seen that Christ not only never contradicted 
that doctrine, but gave to it the full weight of his constant 
indorsement; and that the Apostles repeated and re- 
affirmed it as the truth of the gospel. 

In developing the evidence of this, I have made refer- 
ence almost exclusively to direct assertions having for 
their object an utterance upon that subject. But, if the 
future endless punishment of the wicked is the doctrine 
of the Bible, there ought to be also scattered through its 
pages a great variety of indirect evidences of its truth, in 
the form of sub-assertions, allusions, inferences; and pre- 
cepts, founded upon and made natural by it, all inevi- 
table as growing from it, and weaving their roots more or 
less visibly into the whole texture of the Word. That 
is to say, if the inspired writers believed and taught the 
doctrine, they would inevitably often shape their appeals 

£9 



90 VERDIGT OF REASON. 

in regard to other doctrines with reference to it ; would 
make manifest, in many ways and often, that belief, by 
indirect allusion; while, on the contrary, if they were 
Universalists, that fact would be naturally expected to 
show itself in this indirect manner, at frequent intervals in 
their writings. No examination of the testimony of the 
Scriptures on the question before us can, then, be com- 
plete which does not at least glance at this (which may be 
called circumstantial) evidence, — a form of proof of great 
value in the courts, and which ' ' often leads to a conclu- 
sion far more satisfactory than direct evidence can pro- 
duce." 1 

Let us now proceed to the inquiry, what is the quality 
of this collateral and circumstantial testimony of the 
Scriptures upon the point at issue ; premising only that 
the greatest possible condensation of such testimony is 
obviously indispensable to its use in this brief treatise. 
All that can be done is to indicate classes of passages 
which the reader is desired to examine at large and at 
leisure in this connection. 

1. Those which declare that some shall be excluded 
from the kingdom of God; like, "Many, I say unto you, 
shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able," 2 &c. 

2. Those which indicate danger that many will never 
possess ''holiness, without which no man shall see the 
Lord," 3 &c. 

1 Greenleaf ? s " Law of Evidence," i. 19. 

2 Luke xiii. 28, &c. 3 Hebrews xii. 14, &c. 



INDIRECT TESTIMONIES OF THE BIBLE, 91 

3. Those which assert that many shall never see life ; 
such as, " He that believeth not the Son of God shall not 
see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him," 1 &c. 

4. Those which affirm that many die without any hope ; 
such as, "Sorrow not even as others, who have no hope." 2 
" The wicked is driven away in his wickedness; but the 
righteous hath hope in his death," 3 &c. 

5. Those which record the fact that there are men for 
whom there is no forgiveness ; such as, " There is a sin 
unto death : I do not say that ye shall pray for it," 4 &c. 

6. Those which assert that there are men for whom the 
atonement of Christ will not avail; such as, " The 
preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness," 5 
such as, " A sweet savor of Christ in them that are saved, 
and in them that perish ; to the one the savor of death 
unto death, and to the other the savor of life unto life." 6 

7. Those which make it clear that the atonement, in- 
stead of saving some, will only aggravate their condem- 
nation; such as, " Of how much sorer punishment, suppose 
ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot 
the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the cove- 
nant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath 
done despite unto the Spirit of grace? " 7 &c. 

8. Those which testify that the state of the dead will 

1 John iii. 3. 2 1 Thessalonians iv. 13. 3 Proverbs, xiv. 32. 

4 1 John v. 16. 5 2 Corinthians ii. 15. 

6 2 Corinthians iii. 16. 7 Hebrews x.29, &c. 



92 VERDICT OF REASON. 

be unalterably fixed, — taken in connection with the ob- 
vious fact that many have gone down to the grave in 
dreadful and unrepented guilt; such as, " If the tree 
fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place 
where the tree falleth, there it shall be," l &c. 

9. Those which make it probable that God will be per- 
manently angry with some of his creatures on account of 
their incorrigible wickedness; such as, "Suffering the 
vengeance of eternal fire." 2 " It is a fearful thing to 
fall into the hands of the living God," 3 &c. 

10. Those which represent men as being in danger of 
placing themselves where no prayers nor entreaties will 
avail them any thing ; such as, "I also will laugh at 
your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh . . . then 
sball ye call upon me, but I will not hear ; ye shall seek 
me early, but ye shall not find me." 4 &c. 

11. Those which state that men do perish; such as, 
' ' The wicked shall perish " 5 " with all deceivableness of un- 
righteousness in them that perish." 6 "These shall utterly 
perish in their own corruption, and shall receive the re- 
ward of unrighteousness," 7 &c. 

12. Those which teach that some men shall not be 
saved; such as, " If the righteous scarcely be saved, 
where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" 8 " The 

l Ecclesiastes xi. 3. 2 Jude 7. 3 Hebrews x. 31. 

4 Proverbs i. 26-33. 5 Psalms xxxvii. 20. 

6 2 Tbessalonians ii. 10. 7 2 Peter ii. 13. 8 l Peter iv. 18. 



INDIRECT TESTIMONIES OF THE BIBLE. 93 

harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not 
saved; " 1 &c, taken in connection with the multitude of 
passages which make salvation conditional on faith and 
obedience ; such as, " Thy faith hath saved thee." 2 " Be- 
lieve to the saving of the soul," 3 &c. 

13. Those which affirm that wicked men are in danger 
of going into a remediless state; such as, " He that, 
being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly 
be destroyed, and that without remedy," 4 &c. 

14. Those which insist on the idea of the great danger 
that man will fail of heaven ; such as, "Looking dili- 
gently lest any man fail of the grace of God," 5 &c. 
"Why will ye die? " 6 &c. 

15. Those which imply the danger of the misuse of 
this life considered as a probation ; such as, " What shall 
the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God ? " 7 &c. 
"If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for 
thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than 
having two eyes, to be cast into hell-fire," 8 &c. 

16. Those which declare that the hope of the bad man, 
that he shall be somehow eternally safe, shall be disap- 
pointed ; such as, ' ' The fear of the wicked it shall come 
upon him; . . . the expectation of the wicked shall 
perish," 9 &c. " The hypocrite's hope shall perish," 10 &c. 

1 Jeremiah viii. 20. 2 Luke vii. 50. 3 Hebrews x. 39. 

4 Proverbs xxix. 1. 6 Ezekiel xxxiii. 11. 

5 Hebrews xii. 15. 7 l Peter iv. 17. 8 Mark ix. 43-48. 
9 Proverbs x. 24, 28. 10 Job viii. 13. 



94 VERDICT OF REASON. 

17. Those which threaten 'punishment upon those who 
encourage the wicked to believe that there is no future 
retribution ; such as the denunciation against them who 
" with lies have made the righteous sad, whom I have not 
made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked 
that he should not return from his wicked way, by prom- 
ising him life," 1 &c. 

18. Those which warn men so persistently from one 
end of Revelation to the other, in so many varied forms 
of speech, and from so many different points of approach, 
that there is a fatal contingency always hanging over 
every impenitent man, liable to descend upon him at any 
moment, and sure to do so at some time, if he does not 
repent ; such as, " Seek ye the Lord while he may be 
found, call ye upon him while he is near." 2 "Now is 
the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation," 3 
&c. " Watch ye, therefore, and pray always that ye 
may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that 
shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man," 4 
&c. " Fear lest, a promise being left us of entering 
into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of 
it," 5 &c. 

19. Those which foretell destruction as the end of the 
wicked; such as, "Foolish and hurtful lusts, which 
drown men in destruction and perdition," 6 &c. " Whose 

1 Ezekiel xiii. 22. 2 Isaiah Iv. 6. 3 2 Corinthians vi. 2. 

4 Luke xxi. 36. 5 Hebrews iv. 1. 6 1 Timothy vi. 9. 



INDIRECT TESTIMONIES OF THE BIBLE. 95 

end is destruction," * &c. " Who shall be punished with 
everlasting destruction," 2 &c. "And bring upon them- 
selves swift destruction," 3 &c. 

20. Those which affirm that the death of the soul is 
the doom of the wicked ivho will not repent ; such as, 
" Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death," 4 &c. 
" He which converteth the sinner from the error of his 
way shall save a soul from death," 5 &c. " The wages of 
sin is death," 6 &c. 

21. Those which foretell a second death; such as, 
" He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second 
death," 7 &c. " Blessed and holy is he that hath part in 
the first resurrection ; on such the second death hath no 
power," 8 &c. 

22. Those which predict coming wrath to the impen- 
itent ; such as, "After thy hardness and impenitent heart, 
treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath," 9 
&c. " Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to 
come," 10 &c. " The great day of his wrath is come," u 
&c. " Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to 
come?" 12 &c. 

23. Those which teach that some men become apostates 

1 Philippians iii. 19. 2 Thessalonians i. 9. 3 2 Peter ii. 1. 
4 James i. 15. 5 James v. 20. 6 Romans vi. 23. 

7 Revelation ii. 11. 8 Revelation xx. 6. 9 Romans ii. 5. 

10 1 Thessalonians i. 10. 11 Revelation vi. 17. 

12 Matthew iii. 7. 



96 VERDICT OF REASON. 

and are cast off for ever ; such as, " If thou forsake him, 
he will cast thee off for ever." 1 " Christ is become of none 
effect unto you ; ye are fallen from grace," 2 &c. " If we 
sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of 
the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a 
certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indigna- 
tion," 3 &c. 

24. Those which affirm that wicked men shall be cut 
of; such as, " Evil-doers shall be cut off." 4 " The seed 
of the wicked shall be cut off." 5 " The wicked shall be 
cut off from the earth," 6 &c. " Otherwise thou also 
shalt be cut off" 7 &c. 

25. Those which announce a curse upon the transgres- 
sors ; such as, " Cursed is every one that continueth not 
in all things which are written in the book of the law to 
do them." 8 "Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have 
robbed me;" 9 &c, taken with "Depart from me, ye 
cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his 
angels," M &c. 

26. Those which denounce such men as resist and 
neglect the gospel; such as, "It shall be more tolerable 
for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for 



1 1 Chronicles xxviii. 9. 2 Galatians v. 4. 

3 Hebrews x. 26, 27. 4 Psalm xxxvii. 9. 

5 Ibid. 28. 6 Proverbs ii. 22. 

7 Romans xi. 22. ,- 8 Galatians iii. 10. 

9 Malachi iii. 9. 10 Matthew xxv. 41. 



INDIRECT TESTIMONIES OF THE BIBLE. 97 

you," 1 &c. "It shall be more tolerable for the land of 
Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee," 2 &c. 
" The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this 
generation, and shall condemn it," 3 &c. , 

27. Those which plead with men to repent and be- 
lieve that they may not eternally die ; such as, "I have 
no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord 
God : wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye," 4 &c. "As 
I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death 
of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way 
and live ; turn ye, turn ye from your evil way ; for why 
will ye die, house of Israel ? " 5 &c. " Ye will not come 
to me that ye might have life." 6 

28. Those which teach that the gospel was mercifully 
provided as the remedy against the eternal death of the 
race (of course implying that where it is not known, or is 
not accepted, that doom still threatens) ; such as, " God 
sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but 
that the world through him might be saved," 7 &c. "That 
as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign 
through righteousness unto eternal life," 8 &c. " We shall 
be saved from wrath through him." 9 " Being reconciled, 
we shall be saved by his life," 10 &c. 

l Matthew xi. 22. 2 Ibid. 24. 3 Matthew xii. 41. 

4 Ezekiel xviii. 32. 5 Ezekiel xxxiii. 11. 

6 John v. 40. 7 John iii. 17. 8 Romans v. 21. 

9 Romans v. 9. 10 Ibid. 10. 

7 



98 VERDICT OF REASON. 

29. Those which teach that admittance to heaven is 
to he on conditions which it is obvious that all men do not 
fulfil; such as, " Blessed are they that do his command- 
ments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and 
may enter in through the gates into the city ; for without 
are dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murder- 
ers and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a 
lie," 1 &c. "And the nations of them which are saved 
shall walk in the light of it," 2 &c. " He hath prepared 
for them (those having faith) a city," 3 &c. 

30. Those which declare that those who are guilty of 
the works of the flesh shall not be saved ; such as, " Now 
the works of the flesh are manifest ; which are these : 
adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, 
witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, se- 
ditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revel- 
ings, and such like ; of the which I tell you before, as I 
have also told you in time past, that they which do such 
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God," 4 &c. " Nor 
thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor ex- 
tortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God," 5 &c. " Let 
no man deceive you with vain words ; for because of these 
things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of 
disobedience," 6 &c. 

l Revelation xxii. 14, 15. 2 Revelation xxi. 24. 

3 Hebrews xi. 16. 4 Galatians v. 19-21. 

5 1 Corinthians vi. 10. 6 Ephesians v. C. 



INDIRECT TESTIMONIES OF THE BIBLE. 99 

31. Those which teach that the unfaithfulness of 
Christians to sinners may be the death of the latter ; 
such as, " If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked 
from .his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity," l 
&c. 

32. Those which teach that faithful Christian labor 
may be expected to save souls from death ; such as, " Let 
him know that he which converteth the sinner from the 
error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall 
hide a multitude of sins," 2 &c. "If any man see his 
brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and 
he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death," 8 
&c. ' ' In meekness instructing those that oppose them- 
selves ; if God peradventure will give them repentance to 
the acknowledging of the truth," 4 &c. 

33. Those which imply that believers make a good ex- 
change in suffering pain and peril in this life in order 
thereby to secure heaven; such as, "Blessed are they 
which are persecuted for righteousness' sake ; for theirs is 
the kingdom of heaven. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad ; 
for great is your reward in heaven," 5 &c. " If we suffer 
we shall also reign with him," 6 &c. "These are they 
which came out of great tribulation, and have washed 
their robes, and made them white in the blood of the 

l Ezekiel xxxiii. 8. 2 James v. 20. 

3 1 John v. 16. 4 2 Timothy ii. 25. 

5 Matthew v. 10-12. 6 2 Timothy ii. 12. 



100 VERDICT OF REASON. 

Lamb," 1 &c. " For I reckon that the sufferings of this 
present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory 
which shall be revealed," 2 &c. 

34. Those which teach the vital relation of persever- 
ance to salvation (implying that its absence would be fatal) ; 
such as, " Let us labor to enter into that rest, lest any man 
fall," 3 &c. " Give diligence to make your calling and elec- 
tion sure," 4 &c. " If any man abide not in me, he is cast 
forth," 6 &c, "To them who, by patient continuance in 
well-doing, seek for glory and honor and immortality, eter- 
nal life," 6 &c. 

35. Those which imply that some men have been lost ; 
such as, ' ' None of them is lost, but the son of perdition [is 
lost]" 7 &c. "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and 
Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven ; 
and he overthrew these cities, and all the plain, and all 
the inhabitants of the cities," 8 &c. "And there went 
out fire from the Lord, and devoured them [Nadab and 
Abihu] ; and they died before the Lord," 9 &c. "And 
they [Korah and his company] went down alive into the 
pit, and they perished from among the congregation," 10 



l Revelation vii. 14. 2 Romans ix. 18. 

3 Hebrews iv. 11. 4 2 Peter i. 10. 

5 John xv. 6. 6 Romans ii. 7. 

7 John xvii. 12. 8 Genesis xix. 24-25. 

9 Leviticus x. 2. 10 Numbers xvi. 33. 



INDIRECT TESTIMONIES OF THE BIBLE. 101 

&c. ; " And Ananias hearing these words fell down, 1 and 
gave up the ghost," 2 &c. 

36. Those which intimate the approval of the righteous 
of the eternal punishment of the wicked; such as, "I 
heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying Alle- 
luia, salvation and glory and honor and power unto the 
Lord our God ; for true and righteous are his judgments, 
&c. — and again they said, Alleluia, and her smoke rose 
up for ever and ever ; " 3 &c. , compared with ' ' In the great- 
ness of thine excellency, thou hast overthrown them that 
rose up against thee, — thou sendest forth thy wrath, which 
consumed them as stubble, who is like unto thee, Lord, 
among the gods ? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, 
fearful in praises, doing wonders ? " 4 &c. 

37. Those which indicate that God is glorified by the 
eternal destruction of the incorrigibly sinful; such as, 
" For this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee 
my power, and that my name shall be declared throughout 
all the earth ; " 5 &c. , compared with ' ' What if God, willing 
to show his wrath and make his power known, endured 
with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to de- 
struction," 6 &c. 

1 Acts v. 5. 

2 The natural impression on the face of the narrative is, that these 
reprobates went to hell. To suppose that they went to heaven is to 
suppose God to have defeated his own end of punishment, to say noth- 
ing of the violent incongruity of such character as theirs in heaven. 

3 Eevelation xix. 1-3. 4 Exodus xv. 7-1L 
5 Exodus ix. 16. 6 Eomans ix. 22. 



102 VERDICT OF REASON. 

38. Those which speak of the resurrection of the unjust; 
such as, " There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both 
of the just and unjust," 1 &c. "They that have done good 
unto the resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil 
unto the resurrection of damnation," 2 &c. 

39. Those which teach that worldly prosperity imperils 
the immortal interests ; such as, "A rich man shall hardly 
enter into the kingdom of heaven, ' ' 3 &c. ' ' Ye can not serve 
God and Mammon," 4 &c. "The prosperity of fools shall 
destroy them," 5 &c. " Therefore, this night thy soul shall 
be required of thee, then whose shall those things be which 
thou hast provided ? " 6 &c. 

40. Those which make clear the danger of self decep- 
tion ; such as, ' ' There is a way that seemeth right unto a 
man; but the end thereof are the ways of death," 7 &c. 
" Many will say to me Lord, Lord, have we not prophe- 
sied in thy name ? and in thy name have cast out devils ? 
and in thy name done many wonderful works ? and then I 
will profess unto them, I never knew you ; depart from me, 
ye that work iniquity, " 8 &c. "And for this cause God shall 
send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie ; 
that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, 
but had pleasure in unrighteousness," 9 &c. 

l Acts xxiv. 15. 2 John v. 29. 

3 Matthew xix. 23. 4 Matthew vi. 24. 

5 Proverbs i. 32. 6 Luke xii. 20. 

7 Proverbs xvi. 25. 8 Matthew vii. 22-23. 

9 2 Thessalomans ii. 11-12. 



INDIRECT TESTIMONIES OF THE BIBLE. 103 

41. Those which assert that the love of this world is 
fatal to salvation ; such as, " Love not the world, neither 
the things that are in the world, if any man love the 
world, the love of the Father is not in him." 1 "Whatsoever 
is born of God overcometh the world," 2 &c. " The friend- 
ship of the world is enmity with God, whosoever, therefore, 
will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God," 3 &c. 

42. Those which declare that unbelief is fatal to salva- 
tion ; such as, " He that belie veth not shall be damned," 4 
taken in connection with, "He that belie veth not is con- 
demned already : he that believeth not the Son shall not see 
life, but the wrath of God abideth on him," 5 &c. "Being 
alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that 
is in them, because of the blindness of their heart," 6 &c. 

43. Those which denounce eternal judgment upon some 
grossest offenders ; such as, ' ' No murderer hath eternal 
life abiding in him," 7 &c. " Murderers and whoremongers 
and sorcerers and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their 
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, 
which is the second death," 8 &c. 

44. Those which prescribe repentance as a condition of 
salvation; such as, " Let the wicked forsake his way and 
the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto 

1 1 John ii. 15. 2 l John v. 4. 

3 James iv. 4. 4 Mark xvi. 16. 

5 John iii. 18-36. 6 Ephesians iv. 18. 

7 John iii. 15. 8 Revelation xxi. 8. 



104 VERDIGT OF REASON. 

the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him," * &c. " Re- 
pent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if per- 
haps the thoughts of thy heart may be forgiven thee," 2 
&c. " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," 3 
&c. 

45. Those which prescribe faith as a condition of sal- 
vation ; such as, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
thou shalt be saved," 4 &c. " Whosoever believeth in him 
shall receive remission of sins," 5 &c. Receiving the end 
of your faith, even the salvation of your souls," 6 &c. 

46. Those which announce love to Christ and to the 
truth as fundamental to salvation; such as, " Them that 
perish because they received not the love of the truth that 
they might be saved," J &c. " If any man love not the 
Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema," 8 &c. ; that 
is, let him be consigned to perdition. 9 " The crown of life, 



l Isaiah lv. 7. 2 Acts viii. 22. 3 Luke xiii. 3. 

4 Acts xvi. 31. 5 Acts x. 43. 6 l Peter i. 9. 

7 2 Thessalonians ii. 10. 8 l Corinthians xvi. 22. 

9 " Anathema — accursed ; a thing devoted by a solemn malediction to 
God's wrath and indignation." — Wordsworth* s Comment. Galatians 
i.8. 

The word ava^E\ia — anathema — never denotes simply an exclusion 
or excommunication, but always devotion to perdition."— A Iford on 
Romans ix. 3. 

The scholar will be interested in Trench's distinction between 
avadr/fia (anathema), " a thing devoted to God" for its own honor as 
well as for God's glory," and avadefia (anathema), " that which is de- 
voted to God, but devoted, as were the Canaanites of old, to his honor 
indeed, but its own utter loss." — Synonyms of New Testament, p. 40. 



INDIRECT TESTIMONIES OF THE BIBLE. 105 

which the Lord hath promised to them that love him," 1 
&c. 

47. Those which teach that the incorrigibly wicked will 
go on becoming worse and worse ; such as, ' ' Evil men 
and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and be- 
ing deceived," 2 &c. " They will increase unto more un- 
godliness," 3 &c. "And blasphemed the God of heaven, and 
repented not of their deeds," 4 &c. 

48. Those which teach that there is great danger that 
the Devil will deceive and ruin souls ; such as, " Lest Sa- 
tan should get an advantage of us," 5 &c. " I fear lest by 
any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtle- 
ty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity 
that is in Christ ; and no marvel, for Satan himself is trans- 
formed into an angel of light," 6 &c. " The God of this 
world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not," 7 
&c. " That old serpent called the Devil and Satan, which 
deceiveth the whole world," 8 &c. "The working of 
Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and 
with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that 
perish." 9 &c. 

49. Those which exhort to continual vigilance, on the 
ground that only by resisting the Devil can salvation be 

l James i. 12. 2 2 Timothy iii. 3. 

3 2 Timothy ii. 16. 4 Revelation xvi. 11. 

5 2 Corinthians ii. 11. 6 2 Corinthians xi. 3-14. 

7 2 Corinthians iv. 4. 8 Revelation xii. 9. 
9 2 Thessalonians ii. 9. 



106 VERDICT OF REASON. 

gained; such as, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your 
adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seek- 
ing whom he may devour," * &c. '*' Put on the whole ar- 
mor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles 
of the Devil, . . . and having done all to stand," 2 &c. 
" Kesist the Devil, and he will flee from you," 3 &c. " If 
God peradventure will give them repentance to the ac- 
knowledging of the truth; and that they may recover 
themselves out of the snare of the Devil, who are taken 
captive by him at his will," 4 &c. 

50. Those which everywhere teach that it is the very 
essence of the work of the gospel to secure everlasting \ 
life to believers ; such as, " God so loved the world, that 
he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever belie veth in 
him should not perish, but have everlasting life," 5 &c. 
" Being made free from sin, and become servants to God, 
ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting 
life," 6 &c. " He that soweth to the spirit shall of the 
spirit reap life everlasting," 7 &c. " Believe on him to life 
everlasting," 8 &c. 

Now what I claim concerning these classes of passages, 
and the many similar ones of which space will not here per- 
mit the record, is this : — 

l 1 Peter v. 8. 2 Ephesians vi. 11-13. 3 James iv. 7. 

4 2 Timothy ii. 26. 5 John ill. 16. 6 Romans vi. 22. 

7 Galatians vi. 8. 8 i Timothy i. 16. 



INDIRECT TESTIMONIES OF THE BIBLE. 107 

1. Not that they (or many of them) in so many words 
approach toward the affirmation of the doctrine of the fu- 
ture eternal punishment of those who die impenitent. 

2. Not that they (or many of them) would compel our 
belief of that doctrine in the absence of direct evidence, 
and in the silence of the Scriptures, otherwise, on the sub- 
ject. 

3. But that they fall in more naturally with that doc- 
trine than its opposite, when we find that it is established 
by direct evidence, as true. 

4. That they are just such, in their quality, as we 
should expect them to be, if the doctrine were taken for 
granted as true by the writers. 

5. That they are quite inexplicable on any other theory 
than the truth of the doctrine. 

6. That, coming from every part of the Scriptures, and 
indirectly confirming every aspect of the doctrine, and 
uncontradicted by others of opposite character, — their 
existence is incompatible with any other theory than that 
the doctrine is the doctrine of the book, if it be a self- 
consistent volume. 

If the sixty-six books of the Bible declare that some 
men are to be excluded from the kingdom of God, — never 
to see life, to die without any hope, to have no forgiveness, 
not to be saved, to perish, in danger of remediless ruin, in 
danger of misusing probation, and of being disappointed 
and losing heaven ; that some never will possess holiness, 



108 VERDICT OF REASON. 

never will get the benefit of the atonement, but have their 
condemnation aggravated by it, and will go where prayers 
and entreaties will avail them nothing, but their state be 
unalterable, and where God will be permanently angry 
with them ; that a fatal contingency always overhangs the 
sinner, coming wrath, destruction, the death of the soul, and 
the second death being foretold as the doom of the wicked, 
who shall be cut off; that some will become apostates, 
and be cut off for ever, while those guilty of the works 
of the flesh can not be saved, and that some have been 
lost beyond a doubt, whose punishment the righteous 
approve, and by which God is glorified ; that a curse is 
denounced on those who neglect the gospel, which is the 
remedy against eternal death, so that men must repent 
and believe, or die for ever ; that the conditions of en- 
trance to heaven are such as many men clearly do decline, 
while there is danger from self-deception, and love of the 
world, and worldly prosperity, and unbelief, and the lack 
of perseverance, and the deceit of the Devil, so that while 
Christian faithfulness may save souls, unfaithfulness leaves 
them to perish ; that believers make a good exchange in 
giving up the world to gain heaven, while their salvation 
is only secured by continual conflict with Satan, and judg- 
ment is denounced on gross offenders ; that there is a 
resurrection of the unjust ; and that, while the very object 
of the gospel is to give everlasting life to believers, they 
can attain salvation only by repentance and faith, and 



INDIRECT TESTIMONIES OF THE BIBLE. 109 

love to Christ and the truth ; — if, I say, the sixty-six 
books of the Bible make these declarations in hundreds and 
thousands of passages, in their free, unforced significance, 
— shooting rays of indirect testimony at every angle 
athwart the darkness of the subject, — one of two things 
must be true, — either those books are incoherent, incom- 
prehensible, and valueless, or they do teach the doctrine of 
the future punishment of those who die in unrepented sin. 
I accept the latter* as the reasonable alternative; and 
claim, therefore, that the indirect testimony of the Bible 
is consonant with what we have seen to be its direct teach- 
ing, and that, with that peculiar force which is due to 
such evidence, it affirms that the persistently wicked will be 
for ever punished in the future world. 

Here I rest our inquiries from the word of God. We 
have found that the Old Testament, with as much of 
distinctness as could be expected when its progressive 
adaptation to the advancing training of the Hebrew nation 
is considered, does reveal an eternal difference between 
the condition of the good and the bad in the future world. 
We have seen, from the unquestioned testimony of Jose- 
phus, that the Jewish nation, with the exception of the 
few infidel Sadducees, — holding this Old Testament, and 
studying it with reverence, — had acquired, at the time 
when Christ came, a firm belief in the doctrine of the 
future eternal punishment of the wicked. We have seen 



110 VERDICT OF REASON. 

that Christ never contradicted that belief; but, on the 
contrary, appealed to it perpetually as an argument why 
men should repent and exercise faith in himself, as the 
Saviour of the world. We have seen that he closed his 
earthly ministry by commissioning his disciples to go into 
all the world and preach to every creature the gospel 
which they had received from his lips, concentrating once 
more its essence into that formula which asserts, " He that 
belie veth not shall be damned." We have seen that those 
disciples went and preached as he had commanded ; their 
voice being clear as his had been in the assertion, that 
eternal perdition must be the portion of those who persist 
in rejecting the love of God in Christ to the end of their 
life on earth. We have seen that this is true of all these 
indirect allusions to truths related to, or bordering upon, 
this subject, as well as of their direct teachings. This 
gives us the voice of the whole Bible. From the threat 
of God to Adam, that he should die if he disobeyed, on its 
first page, to the prophetic word of his apostle, excluding 
unworthy men from heaven, on its last, that voice is clear, 
strong, one. It testifies that all who are inveterate in 
disobedience shall be for ever separated from God and 
from the good. It states this as a truth. It does not 
apologize for it, nor philosophize about it; it reveals it as 
a matter of fact, which it is of great consequence for men 
to believe. 

I say it reveals it. I know this is denied. But I in- 



INDIRECT TESTIMONIES OF THE BIBLE. Ill 

sist that it can not be denied, except on that false principle 
of interpretation which would make the Bible merely 
pliant to the pleasure of the interpreter. All sound prin- 
ciples of interpretation affirm eternal punishment for the 
sinner impenitent, as its revelation. To refer to those 
which have been laid down in this treatise, — we can not 
cull all pleasant passages which point toward heaven, and 
reject all others as "uninspired," and so evade it; for 
we must take the whole of the Bible, or none of it, and, 
as a whole, it affirms this doctrine. The self-consistence 
of the Scriptures asserts it, — light streaming back upon 
all that is obscure in the Old Testament from the blazing 
words of Jesus in the New. It is the obvious sense of 
the sacred volume ; nobody ever naturally read Univer- 
salism out of the Bible. We find it revealed progressively, 
just as we should expect from such a progressive volume. 
The common-sense version of the words of the Bible — 
that which all their surroundings of time and place neces- 
sitate — asserts it. Its obscurity and fearfulness are only 
such as are reasonable, when we remember the necessary 
infiniteness, obscurity, and awfulness of the subject-matter 
to which it relates. And as between it and the doctrine 
of Universalism, in those few passages where any doubt 
seems possible, we are constrained to interpret the Bible 
toward its enunciation ; because it favors God most and 
sin least to warn the sinner of a wrath to come, and not 
hold out to him the hope of eternal impunity as a bounty 



112 VERDICT OF REASON. 

on transgression; because the incalculable majority of 
those thus far who have loved God and been warmest in 
sympathy with him, and have walked nearest to him and 
been most led by his Spirit, — and have therefore been 
likeliest to be right, — have firmly believed it ; and because 
it offers, beyond question, the safest alternative of faith. 
He who believes that the wicked will be punished eter- 
nally, and exercises faith in Christ, so as not to "come 
into condemnation," will be eternally safe, even should 
the future world reveal that his faith was vain and there 
is no hell; while he who interprets the Bible toward 
Universalism must be lost, unless his own belief shall bear 
the test of the Judgment. The one can not be lost in 
any event, while the other runs a risk whose vastness may 
well make any man tremble. 

I claim, there/ore, on all reasonable grounds, that the 
testimony of the Bible is distinctly this : there will be a 
fearful and eternal difference between the future of the 
righteous and the wicked! 



CHAPTER VII. 

THERE IS NO REASONABLE OBJECTION ' TO THIS TESTI- 
MONY, HAVING FORCE TO MODIFY IT. 

BEFORE considering, in detail, any of those objec- 
tions which are urged against the doctrine under 
discussion, it will aid us to revert for a moment to under- 
lying first principles, in order to see what form of objection, 
if any, may have validity against it. 

It would be competent to object that, as a matter of 
fact, notwithstanding the seeming proof which we have 
adduced, the Bible does not teach that the wicked will be 
punished eternally in the future world ; or, that while it 
seems to do so, it is impossible for us to accept its testi- 
mony, because it is overruled by other considerations 
which make it impossible for us to believe that it can 
teach such a doctrine. The establishment of either of 
these lines of refutation would amount to the logical de- 
struction of our argument, as thus far developed ; but no 
other form of assault would be competent to overthrow it. 
To adduce any of the prepossessions or notions of our 
minds, as proof having validity superior to the clear word 
of God, would amount to nothing ; for the necessary ob- 

8 113 



114 VERDICT OF REASON. 

scurity of the subject, and its unavoidable remoteness 
from the possibilities of our earthly experience, render our 
conjecture inevitably worthless in comparison with his 
revelation, however unsatisfying to us that may be, so 
long as it maintains itself as reasonably his. We may, 
then, confine our consideration of objections deserving to 
be analyzed and weighed, to those which come under these 
two heads ; and may be sure, if these do not overthrow 
the doctrine, that it can not be overthrown. 

I. It is objected that, notwithstanding all the seeming 
evidence which we have adduced, the Bible does not 
really teach the doctrine of the future eternal punishment 
of those who die in impenitence. 

This objection divides itself into two heads : (1.) That 
the language quoted as announcing the future eternal 
punishment of the impenitent does not really imply that ; 
(2.) That there are other texts which render another con- 
clusion necessary. 

(1.) It is affirmed that those texts which we have 
quoted as declaring that those who die in impenitence 
shall be eternally lost, do not fairly imply, nor render 
necessary, that doctrine. For example : — 

(a.) It is said 1 that the word translated "perish," on 
which our argument relies in such passages as, "Except 
ye repent ye shall all likewise perish," &c, 2 does not 
imply the sense which I have put upon it ; that, in such 

l Mr. Thayer' 's Sermon, p. 15. 2 Luke xiii. 3. 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 115 

texts as "Lord, save us: we perish," &C,, 1 it has a 
lesser significance, which ought to be given to it in all 
cases. 

To this I answer, as I have already shown, 2 the literal 
sense of the Greek word anbTifajfu (apollumi) is "to de- 
stroy utterly . " This primary and dominant sense is, of 
course, always to be interpreted by the circumstances of 
its application ; but whoever will examine carefully the 
ninety-two instances of its use in the New Testament will, 
I think, be obliged to confess that when applied to per- 
sons, it always implies the utmost extent of destruction of 
which its object, under the circumstances, is capable. 
Thus, when spoken of the body, it means death ; as, 
" Shall perish with the sword," &c. 3 "I am not come 
to destroy men's lives " &c., 4 and that referred to above. 5 
But when spoken of the soul it implies the utmost de- 
struction of which the soul is capable, that is, the second 
death ; as where it is put into direct contrast with those 
who are saved. " For we are unto Grod a sweet savor of 
Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish." 6 
Any student in any degree familiar with the laws of lan- 
guage knows that it is impossible to lay down beforehand 
laws defining what words shall in all cases mean ; the 
only way of determining what they do mean being to 

1 Matthew viii. 25. 2 See page 80. 

3 Matthew xxvi. 52. 4 Luke ix. 56. 

s Matthew viii. 25. 6 2 Corinthians ii. 15. 



116 VERDICT OF REASON. 

study them in their actual usage, and to develop the sense 
which their author deposited in them. 

(b.) It is said that the phrases the " kingdom of God " 
and the " kingdom of heaven " merely imply the reign of 
the Messiah in this world ; so that ' ' all that is intended 
by saying that the wicked shall not enter into the kingdom 
of God, is that they will not be received as disciples of 
Christ so long as they continue wicked." 1 But very 
nearly the opposite of this is the judgment of the best com- 
mentators. Alford says, ' ' It has been observed by recent 
critics that whenever the term " kingdom of heaven " (or 
its equivalent) is used in the New Testament, it signifies, 
not the Church, nor the Christian religion, but strictly the 
kingdom of the Messiah which is to he revealed hereaf- 
ter." He adds, "I should doubt this being exclusively 
true." 2 So Tholuck says, "That all the senses of this 
phrase are only different sides of the same great idea, — 
the subjection of all things to God in Christ" 3 Here, 
as before, the study of the one hundred and thirty-eight 
instances in which the phrases are used is the best appeal : 
and this will make it clear that, while in a few instances 
fairly susceptible of the sense put upon them by this ob- 
jection, they much more frequently imply the everlasting 
reign of Christ beyond this world and the judgment-day. 4 

1 Mr. Thayer's Sermon, p. 16. 

2 New Test. i. 17. 3 Bergpredict, 74. 

4 See a discussion of the use of the phrase "kingdom of God," in 

the Christian Review , iii. 380, 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 117 

(c.) It is insisted, again, that the words " damn," 
" damnation," &c, " are used in such a way in Scripture 
as to show that they mean any thing but endless tor- 
ment ; " x and various instances are cited, such as, " Dost 
not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same [condem- 
nation] damnation," &c, in proof of this position. In 
reply to this, I freely acknowledge that the three words, 
Kpcvco, api^a, and npioig [krino, Jcrima, hrisis] usually mean 
less than eternal condemnation. Our second principle (B) 
of interpretation applies here. 2 

The literal sense of the verb krino is to separate, to 
discriminate between, and hence to judge in regard to, 
and hence to condemn (to announce the result of an ad- 
verse judgment). Sometimes in the New Testament it 
intends merely a mental conclusion; as, "If ye have 
judged me to be faithful," 3 &c. "Thou hast rightly 
judged," 4 &c. Very often it means a decision, as of a 
court; as, "Judging the twelve tribes of Israel," 5 
"Sittest thou to judge me after the law," 6 &c. The 
nouns which take their meaning from the verb, follow it in 
these respects. But sometimes, both verb and nouns are 
so placed as to force a sterner sense upon them. Thus, 
the verb in the text, ' ' God shall send them strong de- 
lusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might 

l Mr. Thayer's " Sermon," p. 18. 2 See p. 25. 

3 Acts xvi. 15. 4 Luke vii. 43. 

6 Matthew xix. 28. 6 Acts xxiii. 3. 



118 VERDIGT OF REASON. 

be damned who believed not th*e truth, but had pleasure in 
unrighteousness/' 1 &c. ; while it does not necessarily 
imply eternal exclusion from heaven, and would not teach 
it alone, still does accord with that teaching, when estab- 
lished from other Scripture, better than with any milder 
idea. So the nouns — and especially that most often 
rendered "damnation" in our version [krisis] — are 
sometimes so placed as to make any trivial intent impos- 
sible; as, "The resurrection of damnation." 2 "How 
can ye escape the damnation of hell?" 8 " He that shall 
blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness ; 
but is in danger of eternal damnation."* A "fearful 
looking for of judgment and fiery indignation," 5 &c. I 
am not anxious that the Greek word should be translated 
here " damnation" instead of "judgment; " the latter is 
— in the connection — quite as fearful, and the mere 
assertion that it often (nay, almost always) means a mere 
judgment of the intellect, or a petty decree of some court, 
does no more free it from the alarming sense which its 
gravest use in these cases puts upon it, than the fact that 
the English verb "hang," in nine hundred and ninety- 
nine cases out of every thousand of its use, implies the 
mere harmless suspension of a coat upon a nail, or some 
kindred act, settles it that it never means to kill by suffo- 
cation. 

1 2 Thess. ii. 12. 2 John v. 29. 

3 Matt, xxiii. 33. 4 Mark iii. 29. 

5 Heb. x. 27. 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 119 

(d,) It is further declared that the terms "save," 
"salvation," &c. do not carry the sense of deliverance 
from eternal punishment; and that, therefore, so far as 
they are concerned, our argument fails." 1 But the verb 
co& [_sozo] has the original significance of " delivering," 
"making safe." As to what it makes safe from, its 
usage must show. So the nouns cur^p and Gurrjpia \_soter, 
soteria] derived from it, mean "Saviour" and "salva- 
tion;" from what — their application must decide. 
Sometimes the verb is applied to the deliverance from 
temporal disaster or death ; 2 sometimes to deliverance from 
sin; 3 and sometimes it goes down to a deeper stratum 
of thought, and implies deliverance from eternal judgment ; 
as, "We shall be saved from wrath through him;" 4 
" A sweet savor of Christ in them that are saved, and 
in them that perish ; " 5 " Shall save a soul from death," 6 
&c. The same usage holds of the nouns, as well. And 
it is important to remember in the critical examination of 
such words as these, that the Jews, in whose hearing 
Christ spoke, confessedly must have interpreted them as 
having reference to that eternal death in hell, which they 
believed to be the portion of the sinner ; and Christ knew 
that they would so understand them ; so that the inference 
is unavoidable that he intended to allow them to be mis- 

l Mr. Thayer's " Sermon," p. 19. 2 Matt. viii. 25 ; ix, 21, &c. 

3 Matt. i. 21; Acts xvi. 30, &c. 

4 Rom. v. 9. 5 2 Cor. ii. 15. 6 James v. 20. 



m 

m 

120 VERDICT OF REASON, 

led by his words, or that * — in these passages — he did 
refer to salvation from eternal death. 

One way of putting this objection deserves a moment's 
consideration. The Eev. Mr. Thayer, in his criticism 
upon this argument when published some years ago in 
abbreviated form, says, that the words translated " save " 
and " salvation " occur one hundred and fifty-seven times 
in the New Testament, and that one hundred and three of 
these instances clearly refer to ' ' spiritual or gospel salva- 
tion. And yet," he says, "in not one of these texts is 
it said that Christ came to save the world, or any part 
of it, from endless punishment, or even from ' hell.' But 
it is said repeatedly, and emphatically, that he came ex- 
pressly to save us from something quite different from 
this; [e.g. from 'sins/ 'iniquities,' 'the present evil 
world,' &c] How shall we explain this, if ' salvation 
through Christ ' means what Mr. Dexter assumes ? What 
shall we say of those, who, speaking by the Spirit of God 
in exposition of gospel salvation, never state the case as it 
really is, but spend all their words on matters of com- 
paratively trifling importance ? " * 

It seems to be a sufficient reply to this, to say, that, in 
the judgment of the Saviour and his apostles, " sins," 
"iniquities," and "this present evil world," &c. were 
far from being "matters of comparatively trifling impor- 
tance," and that salvation from them had — in their view 

i Mr. Thayer's " Sermon/' p. 21. 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 121 

— the same relation to salvation from hell which deliver- 
ance from a cause has to security from its effects. 

(e.) Another favorite objection by which the force of 
the testimony of the Word of God on this subject is 
sought to be evaded, is by the allegation that the words 
" sheol " and "gehenna" do not imply future punish- 
ment ; but that the former simply means the place of 
departed souls, and the latter the valley of Hinnom. 
With regard to the former, as it has been already referred 
to, * and as its exact sense has but slight bearing upon the 
question of the attitude of the New Testament toward the 
subject under discussion, I will not take space here to 
discuss it. As to the latter, it will be perceived at once, 
by recalling the second principle (B), set down for the 
interpretation of the Bible, 2 that the question must be 
one partly of general Jewish usage, and partly of the spe- 
cific usage of the New Testament. It is, of course, conceded 
that the original application of the word was to the valley 
of Hinnom, as it was simply a transfusion into the 
Greek language of the Hebrew words &3f] &03 [ Ge-Hin- 
nom], meaning the valley of Hinnom ; thus constructing 
the compound Greek word yeewa \_geenna] exactly as the 
word baptize was transferred to the English from the 
Greek. But the fact that its primary meaning was thus 
local and literal does not, of itself, settle it, that it never 
took on a deeper metaphorical significance. That is a 

1 See p, 52, 2 See p. 25, 



122 VERDICT OF REASON. 

question to be decided by the evidence. An orator may 
speak of New England as the land of Bunker Hill. Lit- 
erally interpreted, his words merely assert a geographical 
fact. But that does not prove that he has not idealized 
the fact, and did not intend by it to designate New Eng- 
land as the spot where freedom conquered for herself a 
home. Whether he did so, or not, in any particular in- 
stance, must be a question of fact, to be decided by the 
evidence. 

Turning, then, to the question of fact, I suggest as 
conclusive in proof that the word Gehenna was used by 
Christ in the advanced and metaphorical sense of " the 
place of future punishment," the following considera- 
tions: — 

i. It is undeniable that long before the time of Christ 
the place Gehenna had been idealized by the teachers of 
the Jews, and its putrescent heaps of decaying garbage, 
eaten by the worms, and burned by the ever-fed fires de- 
signed to purify the air, had been seized upon by them to 
convey to the popular mind the horror of that hell which 
awaits the wicked in the future world ; so that the use of 
the word, without qualification, in speech susceptible of 
that sense, would naturally have conveyed to any listening 
Jew of our Saviour's time the idea, not of Hinnom, but of 
hell. 1 If, then, he used it in that connection, without re- 

l " From the depth and narrowness of the gorge, and, perhaps its ever- 
burning tires, as well as from its being the receptacle of all sorts of 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 123 

buke or hint of any other and lesser intent, if he were not 
deceiving the people, he certainly did design that they 
should receive his words as intending future punishment. 1 

ii. He used the word eleven times; seven times in 
the record of Matthew, 2 three times in those of Mark, 3 and 
once in that of Luke. 4 In every instance there is no im- 
plication to forbid the inference, but every evidence that 
he intended to be understood as speaking of hell and not 
of Hinnom — of the future condemnation of lost souls. It 
is incredible, under the circumstances, that he should 
not have been so understood. It is more incredible that 
under such circumstances he should have so used the word, 
if he did not believe in hell, and did not mean to warn men 
against it. 

The~only remaining instance of the use of the term in the 
New Testament is in the epistle of James. 5 But that in 
no sense modifies, but every way confirms, 6 this judgment, 

putrifying matter, and all that defiled the holy city, it became in later 
times, the image of the place of everlasting punishment, ' where their 
worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched,' in which the Talmudists 
place the mouth of hell." 

1 See Lange's Comment, i. 114. Smith 9 s Diet, of the Bible, ii. 661. 

2 Matthew v. 22, 29, 30; x. 28; xviii. 9; xxiii. 15, 33. 

3 Mark ix. 43, 45, 47. 4 Luke xii. 5. 5 James iii. 6. 

6 Alford's Comment on this verse is " These words are not to be ex- 
plained away --as Theile — ' igne foedissimo ac funestissimo 9 ; such is 
not St. James's teaching (compare chap. iv. 7, where the devil, as a 
tempter to evil, is personally contrasted with God), but are to be liter- 
ally taken. It is the Devil, for whom hell is prepared, that is the temp- 
ter and instigator of the habitual sins of the tongue." Vol. iv. pt. 
i. 306. 



124 VERDICT OF REASON. 

that the real meaning of the word Gehenna, at that date, 
under such circumstances of use as those in which Christ 
and the Apostles lived and taught, was that which our 
common English version faithfully conveys. 1 

Nor does the objection, that if our Saviour and the Apos- 
tles believed in future punishment, and intended to teach 
it by the use of the word Gehenna, they would have used 
that word, and so proclaimed the doctrine a great deal 
oftener, 2 avail to destroy the fact, that when they did use it, 
they meant future punishment by it. The word paradise 
is used only three times in the New Testament, and only 
once by Christ ; — does that prove that it does not mean the 
abode of the justified, and that Christ and the Apostles 
did not believe that any will be justified? The word 
holiness is used only thirteen times in the New Testa- 
ment, and never by Christ ; — are we thence to infer that he 
did not have faith in, and desire, holiness for men ? The 
word purity is used only twice in the New Testament, and 
never by Christ ; — are we to understand that he and his 
followers did not believe in, and labor to promote that vir- 
tue on the earth ? The absurdity of such reasoning might 
be shown by scores of similar examples. Our only safe 
course is to take what the Bible does say, — not what we 
think it ought to have said, — and deal honestly and honor- 
ably with that ; then we may be made wise unto salvation. 

l Notice what is said on this subject by Thompson in The Land and 
the Boole, ii. 494-8 ; Robinson's Biblical Researches, i. 404 ; and Physical 
Geography of the Holy Land, 100. 2 Mr. Thayer's Sermon, 29. 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 125 

(f. ) A further strenuous effort has been made to nullify 
the testimony of the Gospel in regard to future punishment, 
by the assertion that the words " eternal," " everlasting," 
"forever," &c, do not intend unlimited duration. Here, 
as before, the artifice is to press the point that the words 
sometimes mean less than an eternal duration, and thence 
to argue that they never mean that. Thus Mr. Thayer 
says, 1 " ' I will give thee the land of Canaan for an everlast- 
ing possession,' and the covenant of circumcision is called 
* An everlasting covenant ; ' and the priesthood of Aaron 
is called ' an everlasting priesthood,' and yet the Jews 
were driven out of the land of Canaan, and the covenant 
of circumcision was abolished, and the priesthood of Aaron 
set aside, by God himself, more than eighteen hundred 
years ago ! Now, if Mr. Dexter insists that this word neces- 
sarily, or by usage, means endless, then he insists that God 
has broken his promise to the Jews three several times. 
But, as the apostle gays c it is impossible for God to lie,' 
the only conclusion is that everlasting does not mean end- 
less." 

I have already referred to this question of the sense of 
these words of duration. 2 I will only add here, as very 
pertinent and conclusive, an extract from a valuable work 
by Prof. Bartlett, now of the Chicago Theological Semi- 
nary. He says : 3 — 

1 Mr. Thayer's Sermon, p. 22. 

2 See page 74. 3 Modern Universalism, 82. 



126 VERDICT OF REASON. 

" Universalists make much parade of a few instances in 
which the Hebrew term for ' everlasting ' designates some- 
thing less than absolute eternity, as ' the everlasting bills/ 
But the phrase, when applied to future time, always denotes 
the longest duration of which its subject is capable. i Ever- 
lasting hills ' are those which will continue to the end of the 
world. ' He shall serve forever,' i. e. during the longest pe- 
riod of which he is capable, his whole life. Hannah devoted 
Samuel to the Lord ' forever j ' i. e. he was never to return 
to private life. ' An ordinance forever ' is one which lasts 
through the longest possible time, i. e. the whole dispensation 
of which it is a part. Such cases, few in number, do not 
contravene in spirit the scores of instances in which it sig- 
nifies absolute eternity — the original and proper sense of the 
term. 

" The Greek adjective translated ' everlasting ' al&vtog 
\_aionios~] when applied to future duration, in all cases (ex- 
cepting, for the time, its application to punishment) denotes 
an endless period. It is used sixty-six times ; twice in rela- 
tion to God and his glory ; fifty-one times concerning the 
happiness of the righteous ; six times of miscellaneous sub- 
jects, but with the plain signification ' endless ; ' and seven 
times concerning future punishment. 1 The phrase trans- 
lated 'forever/ elg rov altiva [eis ton aiona~\ with its plural 
form, uniformly denotes endless duration, and is employed 
sixty-one times, six of which relate to future punishment. 
The phrase 'forever and ever' ek tovq altivag rov aluvuv 
[eis tons aionas ton aidnon] also invariably denotes endless 
duration. It occurs twenty-one times, eighteen of which 
relate to the continuance of the perfections, glory, govern- 
ment, and praise of God ; one to the happiness of the right- 
eous; and two to future punishment. 2 Plain men can under- 
stand such facts." 

i StuarPs Essays ,47. 2 Stuart's Essays, 36. 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 127 

(2.) But it is further affirmed that, even if these 
texts which have been examined, or some of them, do 
fairly teach the doctrine of future punishment, there are 
others which render the opposite conclusion necessary. 

The texts mainly relied on in this connection, are those 
which affirm the relation of the atonement of Christ to the 
salvation of men in very broad terms; such as, "He is 
the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but also 
for the sins of the whole world ; " 1 " Who gave himself 
a ransom for aff," &c. 2 "Who is the Saviour of all 
men, especially of those that believe," &c. 3 But it is 
only needful to .suggest here the recalling to mind of our 
third principle (C.) 4 of a sound interpretation of the 
Scriptures. They must be presumed to be self-consistent, 
and their sense gathered accordingly. And those many 
texts which announce, in the most distinct and unambigu- 
ous terms, the dependence of personal salvation upon per- 
sonal faith, and which explain, that while Christ died for all 
men, in the sense that he thereby made it possible for all to 
be saved if they will accept of his conditions of salvation, 

l 1 John ii. 2. 21 Timothy ii. 6. 

3 1 Timothy iv. 10. " This is what St. Paul declares, when he says 
that God is ' the saviour of all men,' that is, in desire and design. 
This is his primary predestination. But then the Apostle adds, 
* specially of them that believe.' In desire he predestinates all men to 
salvation ; and he predestinates the faithful in act." — Wordsworth 
New Test. ii. 198. 

4 See page 27. 



128 VERDICT OF REASON. 

they yet remain free to reject his work, and that in point 
of fact, many do reject it, are sufficient to foreclose all the 
conclusions of Universalism from this branch of argument. 
There is, then, no firm ground in this direction. All 
these efforts to resist the natural force of the language of 
Scripture are as futile in their result, as they are unwar- 
ranted in their processes. No man — not even the warm- 
est advocate of the Universalist theory — can deny that 
the weight of sound disinterested scholarship is against all 
such endeavors to empty the language of the Scriptures of 
the doctrine of the future punishment of the wicked. It 
was meant to teach it. It does teach it. To take the 
ground that it does not teach it, is to take the ground that 
it is impossible for it to be taught through the Greek lan- 
guage — for there are no more absolute declarations of 
never-ending eternity in that language than those which it 
applies again and again to this subject, — a conclusion to 
which no competent scholar in the full consciousness of 
what he is doing can come. So that the only logical pro- 
cess possible to that denier of the doctrine of future pun- 
ishment who is honest, intelligent, and a thorough student 
of the original tongues of the Bible, is that which was 
adopted by Theodore Parker, when he said, "It is quite 
clear that Jesus taught the doctrine of eternal damnation, 
if the evangelists are to be treated as inspired. I can 
understand his language in no other way;" 1 namely, to 

l See page 77. 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 129 

admit that the Bible does teach the doctrine, and then 
deny that, so teaching, it can be inspired. A persistent 
Universalist, therefore, must be faithless to his own logical 
faculty, not to be an infidel. 

II. But granting that the Bible does, by all the ordi- 
nary principles of interpretation, seem to teach the 
future endless punishment of the ivicked, it is further 
objected that it is impossible for us to accept it as really 
so teaching, — or to accept the doctrine, if it be so taught, 
— because it is overruled by other considerations render- 
ing any such belief impossible. 

Among the many suggestions of this description, I 
refer here to six, as including all of special moment. 

(1.) We are told that it is impossible that men can 
ideally believe the doctrine of the future endless punish- 
ment of the impenitent, and live in any peace, not to say 
happiness. It is said, " If it were thoroughly credited and 
acted upon, all the business of the world would cease, and 
the human race would soon die out." x It is said of 
the ordinary believer of it, "Either his professed faith is 
an unreality to him, or else he is as selfish as a demon, 
and as hard-hearted as the nether millstone. If he really 
believed the doctrine, and had a human heart, he must 
feel it to be his duty to deny himself every indulgence, 
and give his whole future and earnings to the missionary 
fund. And when he had given all else, he ought to give 

l Alger's Doctrine of a Future Life, 648. 

• 9 



130 VERDICT OF REASON. 

himself, and go to Pagan lands, proclaiming the means 
of grace until his last breath. If he does not that he is 
inexcusable." * " No more children should be brought 
into the world : it is a duty to let the race die out and 
cease." 2 "God ought not to have let Adam have any 
children." 3 "If the doctrine in question be true, it must 
destroy the happiness of the saved, and fill all heaven 
with sympathetic woe," &c, &c. 4 

All this is plausible at the first glance, but a little cool 
reflection will show that it has no real logical force. 

In the first place, God has mercifully shielded the sensi- 
tiveness of the soul — as he has that of the body by tough 
and insensible enclosing integuments — from that immedi- 
ate and constant contact with outward disagreeabilities 
which — if their power were not thus deadened — would 
be perpetual torment. The Rev. Mr. Alger unquestion- 
ably has a kind heart and a sympathizing spirit, and would 
be easily moved by the sight or consciousness of suffering 
in others. And there unquestionably are at every mo- 
ment of the twenty-four hours of every day of every year 
within the sweep of a half-mile radius from his residence 
on Temple Street, in Boston, cases enough of poverty, 
wretchedness, and abandoned guilt, accompanied by the ex- 
treme of both physical and mental anguish, to keep him 
perpetually filled with sympathetic agony, were he fully 
conscious of the facts. Will he then deny the truth of the 

1 Alger's Doctrine of a Future Life, 544. 2 ibid. 545. 

3 Ibid. 545. 4 ibid. 540. 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 131 

" doctrine " that there is this suffering actually around him ; 
or, while believing it in all honesty, is his professed faith in it 
so far an unreality to him that he is able to eat, sleep, and 
enjoy life, and increase the number of children exposed to 
all this earthly wretchedness, and so — on his own theory 
— prove himself to be "as selfish as a demon, and as hard- 
hearted as the nether millstone " ? There seems to be a 
practical flaw somewhere in his argument. The fact that 
we all of us in the North have been able to live mostly in 
great general comfort, and even happiness, while thousands 
of our fathers, brothers, and sons have been starving to 
death in Southern prisons, under circumstances of fiendish 
atrocity, unheard of before in the history of the world, and 
impossible in this nineteenth century except as the fruits of 
that petrifaction of the human heart which the barbarism 
of slavery engenders, —does neither prove, on the one hand, 
that we are monsters, nor, on the other, that the asserted 
horrors of Andersonwlle, and Belle Isle, and elsewhere, 
are not real, and that we do not believe them. There is a 
flaw in the argument. 

And, in the second place, there is a view of the subject 
of the future punishment of the wicked, which even the 
most tender-hearted of the good can accept as, if not a 
comfortable, at least an endurable one. It is the consid- 
eration that the lost are in the hands of a Being who is 
both infinitely just and infinitely kind ; so that, however 
they may suffer, and in whatever way they may be dis- 



132 VERDICT OF REASON. 

posed of, it is impossible that any thing should happen to 
them, which they do not deserve, not merely, but which is 
unkind to them, which is not for their best good, and the 
best good of the universe, and which, however it may par- 
take of severity, will yet be the result of severity guided 
by infinite kindness. Such considerations assist those who 
truly love God, to acquiesce in all, even the most myste- 
rious of his ways. And to affirm that the abolition of fu- 
ture punishment is essential to the eternal happiness 
of the good, is to affirm that the good can not be eternally 
happy, without making it a condition of their happiness 
that God's will should not be done in earth as it is in hea- 
ven, which is an incredible supposition. So that, to take 
the ground that the clear doctrine of the Bible on this sub- 
ject can not be received by us, on any such ground as this, 
is simply absurd. 

(2.) We are told that it is impossible for the human 
mind to believe that the persistently impenitent will be 
eternally punished in hell, because the end of all punish- 
ment is restorative, and any such punishment ivould, there- 
fore, defeat its own end. But this is pure assumption, 
unsustained either by the sound judgment of men, or by 
the Word of God. The primary intent of punishment is 
the general safety and welfare of society and the vindica- 
tion of the insulted majesty of the violated law ; the resto- 
ration of the offender by the punitive process to virtue and 
obedience is often present indeed, — always, when possi- 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 133 

ble — but always as a subordinate element. It has no 
place at all in the legal idea of penalty. This is the com- 
mon judgment of the world as expressed in its treatises on 
law and government. 

This is no doubt the truth so far as the matter is within 
our purview; but as — from the nature of the case — 
only God can know what are all the designs which he has 
in view in punishing persistent and incorrigible sin ; and 
what is the relative rank of these designs among them- 
selves ; it is very clearly a most unreasonable step for us 
to assume that he has only one intent in punishment, and 
that that one is incompatible with the doctrine of the Bible 
in regard to hell, and so that doctrine is one which — Bi- 
ble or no Bible — it is impossible for a sane mind to re- 
ceive ! 

(3.) We are told that it is impossible that the doctrine 
of the future punishment of sin can be true, even though 
the Bible does seem to reveal it, because it is palpably un- 
just. This objection takes two forms : that the sins of a 
short life can not deserve eternal punishment ; and that, 
even if they do deserve it, man has not been duly notified 
of his danger, and so it is unjust to punish him in that 
dreadful manner. 

(a.) Is it true that the sins of a human life — short or 
long — can not deserve eternal punishment ? In reply, I 
urge : — 

i. It lies on the face of the subject that it is impossi- 



134 VEBDIGT OF REASON. 

ble for us to knoiv that they do not. We may think so ; 
it may seem so to us ; but then we are compelled to confess 
that we are looking only at the outside of the subject, and 
looking at it only in its most trivial relations. Is it safe 
for us, then, to say that we know that not to be true, which 
God says is true with regard to it ? Suppose God, who 
built the earth, should tell us that there is a great diamond 
weighing a ton, in its exact centre, around which its whole 
mass is concreted and compacted ; would it be safe for us 
to say, ' ' I have bored down an artesian well a thousand 
feet, and have gone down in a mine a thousand feet more, 
and saw no signs of the diamond ; therefore I know that 
it is not there " ? 

ii. It is clear that sin is the expression in act of the 
selfish disposition which is resident within, which is in re- 
bellion against God ; and that its demerit is to be measured 
not by itself abstractly, but by its relation to that dispo- 
sition, so that it is surely abstractly possible even for one 
sin to deserve eternal punishment. Dr. Parkman was hung 
for one murder. Nobody felt that it was important to prove 
a succession of acts of homicide, in order to establish his 
ill-desert. One such indication of a selfishness within, 
which has grown to such a ravening power, that it stops at 
nothing to gain its ends, is felt so fully to interpret the 
character, as to justify the extremest action which the case 
demands. The Bible does not make the question one of 
how much sin, but of what kind of a character that sin 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 135 

reveals; and it says, " The wages of sin is death." Its 
measure of the guilt and doom of human offenses is not 
mathematical but spiritual ; not " so many sins — so much 
punishment ; " but " such a character (revealed by these 
sins) must necessarily, for the general good, and even 
safety, be treated in such a manner." 

Sin is the worst thing. It is the deadliest enemy of all 
true peace, prosperity, and happiness. Its essence is sel- 
fishness, which would gather all into, and sacrifice all to, 
one ; while the essence of all that is good and glad and 
gracious, is so to manage one, as to bless all. Sin puts 
"I" as above all, and would sacrifice every thing — even 
God himself — to its single personality. There is, there- 
fore, no such possibility as peaceably living with it in the 
universe. If it will not yield and be willing to share with 
others, and cease its offense to all, the only course left, for 
peace to the universe, is to shut it up where it can not 
absorb any longer. God can not be a good being, if he 
do not hate the worst thing ; can not be a good ruler, if 
he do not shut it up in some safe prison-house when it is 
demonstrated to be incorrigible. 

iii. As the question is, after all, with the sinner rather 
than with his sin — when he proves incorrigible, and 
will not repent, but persistently keeps on growing worse 
every day, and every day demonstrating more and, more 
clearly that the happiness of others, and the general gooo; 
requires his seclusion from his fellows, so that he can not 



136 VERDICT OF REASON. 

gratify his desire to harm them for his own benefit, until 
his body is worn out, and he can not stay any longer in 
this world, what shall God do with him ? Where shall 
he go ? If he compelled human government to keep him 
constantly in prison here, because the moment he was let 
out of prison he went to robbing and murdering, so that 
it was impossible for society to live with him free ; will 
it be safe for God to let him be free in the other world ? 
If earth could not bear him, except as a convict, can 
heaven endure him ? What can God do with him — since 
the omnipotence of his grace (which never forces free 
agency) long ago exhausted itself in vain efforts to redeem 
him — but send him to the prison of the universe, and, 
since he will eternally keep on sinning, and so keep on 
more and more deserving to be incarcerated, what can 
God do but make his stay there eternal? And is it for us 
to say that such a man, eternally sinning, does not de- 
serve eternal punishment ? More than this, is it safe for 
us to reject the Bible, and say that the eternal punish- 
ment of sin which it reveals, is impossible because it 
never can be just ! 

(b.) But it is urged that if the eternal punishment of 
sin ever could abstractly be just, it can not be just con- 
cretely in any particular case, because men have not been 
duly notified. But this can only mean that some men 
nave not "been " duly notified ; " for surely all who have 
the Bible and the gospel are obliged to fight their way to 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 137 

perdition against perpetual urgencies, if they are lost. 
And as to those who lived before the revelation, or who 
•have since lived in ignorance of it, two things are surely 
true, viz. (i.) they have a sufficient " notification " in the 
light of nature, if they use it aright ; or Paul was wrong 
when, speaking by inspiration, he declared that they are 
" without excuse ; " x and (ii.) they are in the hands of 
infinite justice, administered with infinite kindness ; which 
has laid down the rule, that ' ' he that knew not, and did 
commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few 
stripes,' ' 2 

I insist, then, that the doctrine of the future punishment 
of the incorrigibly wicked, is so far from being so unjust 
as to be impossible of belief, that it would be impossible 
for us to believe that God is either just or good, as the 
Ruler of. the universe, if it were not true. No ruler on 
earth would be either just or good who had no prison 
where the dangerous should be confined ; and there is 
every reason to judge that heaven needs its prison-house 
even more than earth, since it is the law of human na- 
ture that "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and 
worse," — a law which disembodiment can not annul, if 
indeed it does not enhance its force. 

(4.) It is further urged that it is impossible that 
the doctrine of future punishment can be true, even if 
the Bible does assert it, because there will be a probation 

l Romans i. 20. 2 Luke xii. 48. 



138 VERDICT OF REASON. 

in the next world, just as there is here, and those who 
die in sin, in the clearer light of eternity, will repent 
and so all he saved. But, — 

(a.) There is no evidence, of any sort, that there will 
be such a probation ; not a word from God, from Christ, 
from any prophet or apostle, — from any being competent 
to give evidence, — that there will be such a probation in 
the future world. 

(b.) Such a probation would be unreasonable. It is 
needless, because this probation of which we are now the 
subjects is enough, if rightly used. And if it be said that 
there ought to be another, in kindness to those who have 
neglected this; then, by emphasis, there ought to be still 
another, for those who should neglect the second, and a 
fourth, for those who should neglect the third, and so on 
— ad infinitum ; so that, to take the ground that this pro- 
bation is not enough for justice, is to affirm that there 
never can be any that shall satisfy justice. 

(c.) There is not only no proof, but absolutely no 
probability, that if there were a second probation after 
death, those who should have died in sin would repent, 
"in the clearer light of eternity." If, in such a second 
probation, they should be exposed to a sort of purgatorial 
suffering for the sins of this life, there is no evidence that 
such suffering would have any tendency to modify their 
hearts; while if they have no suffering, they will most 
likely — so determined is the bent of depraved nature to 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 139 

sin — "because sentence against their evil work is not exe- 
cuted speedily, fully set their heart in them to do evil." 1 
So resulting, such an extension of probation would be ac- 
tually unkind ; as tempting sinners to continuance in sin, 
till its chains are too tough to break. 

(d.) Such a theory makes no provision for those who, 
in the exercise of their free agency, should persist in 
sinning obdurately through all probations, one or many. 
What shall God do with them ? What ought to be done 
with them ? And who is authorized to say, with certainty, 
that there would not, as a matter of fact, be many such, 
if additional probation were offered. 

(e.) The Bible asserts the absolute contrary. Its 
whole drift is against any such notion. It says that now 
is the day of salvation. It everywhere assumes that this 
probation is adequate, and will be final. It presents 
Christ as to be received now, or never. It grounds the 
condemnation of the wicked upon their rejection of the 
Gospel now and here. All its solemn warnings, and its 
eager expostulations and tender entreaties, hinge upon the 
thought that all hope of mercy for the sinner dies with his 
death. 

' ' Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of 
entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short 
of it." If there is no evidence of any further probation ; 
if it would be unreasonable that one should be provided, 

l Ecclesiastes viii. 11. 



140 VERDICT OF REASON. 

and indeed unkind, as tempting to continuance in sin ; if 
such a theory furnishes no probability of saving its sub- 
jects and fails to consider the case of those persistent reb- 
els who inveterately resist all gracious influence, and if 
the whole tenor of God's word is diametrically opposed to 
it; it is surely so far against reason that it is unworthy 
of serious notice as overthrowing the doctrine of the future 
punishment of all who die in sin. 

(5.) But, we are told again, that the doctrine of the 
future eternal punishment of the wicked can not claim 
our belief under any circumstances, and on any amount 
of evidence, because the wicked will be annihilated, and 
so can not suffer. To this I reply : — 

(a.) If this were true, it would be the worst punish- 
ment of all. To cease to be, would, to many minds, at 
least, be more dreadful, than to live, even in torment. 

(b.) It is, indeed, susceptible of the gravest doubt 
whether a soul can cease to be, under any circumstances ; 
whether the awful and mysterious gift of life once re- 
ceived, can ever be demitted, and whether that which has 
once become a living soul has not in that becoming en- 
tered necessarily upon a life thenceforward co-eternal with 
that of God himself. 

(c.) All the evidence from reason in proof that we 
have souls, proves that they are immortal souls. 

(d.) There is no evidence that death ends life, but 
only that it transfers it to the world of spirits. 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 141 

(e.) We have an instinct of immortality, a capacity, an 
expectation and desire, reaching forth into the future ; and 
as really in the case of the sinner as the saint. 

(f.) Conscience argues that we are to live for ever, and 
as truly and earnestly in the breast of the unbeliever as of 
the Christian. 

(g.) God's moral government is of such a nature as to 
render necessary — so far as we can see — to its fairness, 
that the wicked, as well as the righteous, shall live for ever. 

(h.) There is no evidence from the Bible of any dis- 
crimination, as to the fact of eternal existence, between 
the righteous and the wicked. 

(i.) On the other hand, all those texts which affirm 
future punishment, imply that it will be inflicted upon 
conscious sufferers. Take the text "These [the wicked] 
shall go away into everlasting punishment." x The Greek 
word Kolaotg \kolasis] not merely can not mean annihila- 
tion, but refuses to be consistent with it. It is used only 
in one other place in the New Testament. " There is no 
fear in love ; but perfect love casteth out fear, because 
fear hath [/c6Aa<7^] torment." 2 This can not be rendered 
"annihilation" without making nonsense; the term im- 
plies a state of conscious distress. And the result of the 
widest and most careful study of the usage of this word 
\ji61aGtg\ in the Greek writers will lead inevitably to the con- 

1 Matthew xxv, 64. 

2 1 John iv. 18 



142 VERDICT OF REASON. 

elusion that it never means annihilation, or any synonyme 
of, or approach to, that idea. * 

Says one of the ablest living critics, 2 " Eternal death, 
in the sense of banishment from God, and from all good, 
with the misery naturally belonging to such a condition, is 
an intelligible idea, and that is also eternal punishment. 
Eternal death as the penalty of sin, in the sense of anni- 
hilation, is also an intelligible idea, but that would not be 
eternal punishment. The death itself (in the sense of 
non-existence) would be eternal, but the punishment 
would be its own limitation. It must cease when there 
was no longer a being to receive it. We can as well con- 
ceive of a man as punished a thousand years before he 
begins to be, as a thousand years after he has ceased to be." 

But, if every consideration from reason and from Scrip- 
ture is against such a conclusion, shall we assume the 
dreadful idea of ceasing to exist as so far a reasonable 
probability as to be a safe guide in rejecting the claim of 
our own nature and the word of God : and meanly trust 
to sneak into nonentity in order to dodge a manly reckon- 
ing with our Creator for the deeds which we 'have done in 
the body? 

(6.) But, once more, if all else fails, the unbeliever 
in eternal punishment falls bach upon some vague trust 

1 See the whole subject thoroughly discussed from a large induction 
of Greek passages in Thompson's Love and Penalty, 303-316. 

2 Prof. Barrows, of Andover, in " Bibliotheca Sacra,*- for July, 1858. 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 143 

in God's goodness, and denies that it can be reasonable 
to believe that the heavenly Father, of infinite power at 
the service of infinite love, can punish his own children 
for ever, no matter what they may do. 

In any just consideration of this objection, we are 
called upon to remember that, though God is infinitely 
good and kind as a Father, he is also infinitely just and 
exacting as a Ruler. These two attributes the Bible per- 
petually urges upon our thought together, as the two 
poles of the infinite character, — bidding us ' ' behold the 
goodness and severity of God ; " 1 so that it must clearly be 
unsafe to draw vital conclusions from one of them without 
remembering — least of all in direct opposition to — the 
other. I reply directly, however, to this position, thus : — 

(a.) Facts of constant occurrence in this life show that 
it is unsafe to trust to this kind of abstract inference with 
regard to God, unless it is supported by his own declara- 
tions of what he will do. The following process of reason- 
ing, for example, is entirely analogous to that of the 
objection now under consideration, and yet is manifestly 
false in its conclusion. 

i. A being of infinite love and kindness must always 
infinitely desire happiness in all his creatures ; and, if he 
has the power to carry out that desire, must always pro- 
mote such happiness, and especially may be relied upon 
to shield them from dreadful calamities, such as torture, 
starvation, and agonizing death. 

1 Kom. xi. 22. 



144 VERDICT OF REASON. 

ii. God is a Being of infinite love and kindness, 
and he has infinite power, so that if he desires to shield 
his children from calamities, he can do so — by miracle, if 
necessary ; as he kept Daniel in the lion's den, and the 
three Jews in the burning fiery furnace of Nebuchad- 
nezzar. 

hi. Therefore it follows that God may be depended 
upon to shield men — who are his children — from torture, 
starvation, and agonizing death. 

Read, now, the Reports of the Committee on the Fort- 
Pillow Massacre, and on the condition of Union prisoners ; 
look at the gaunt, skeleton pictures, there all too faithfully 
hinting to what a condition humanity can be reduced by 
malignant and persevering hatred and cruelty ; count the 
graves of our dead, murdered by inches with every imagi- 
nable enhancement of torment ; shudder at the gibbering 
idiocy — worse than death — in which some of these poor 
sufferers have been sent home to their friends; realize all 
the horrors of the Libby, and of Belle Isle and Anderson- 
ville, and then tell me why God — if your reasoning is 
sound — permitted this ; tell me how it was possible that 
Infinite goodness and kindness, if it is always free to 
follow out its dictates without considerations of restraint 
from other aspects of the Divine character, could have 
tolerated it ? Would an earthly father have looked over 
the stockade fence into these dens of devilish torment day 
after day, and allowed his own sons to rot and famish there 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 145 

— he having the power to release them ? And does not 
God love his children better than earthly parents can love 
theirs ? 

How is it ? 

There must he some fatal flaw in this logic ! 

And yet it is identically the same argument in essence 

— and so in logical force — with that on which the Uni- 
versalist relies, when he says that God is surely too good 
to allow men to suffer in hell. 

(b.) This brings us to the careful consideration of the 
thought, suggested before, of that balancing fact in the 
Divine nature, of severity, which is as truly regnant there 
as love itself. The Universalist — to turn for a moment 
to mathematical similes — conceives of God's nature as a 
circle described around the center of love. To him he is 
all Father. Some of the sternest old theologians seem 
to have conceived of him, on the contrary, as a circle 
described around the center of severity. To them he is 
only Ruler. Both are partly right, and partly wrong. 
The truer conception of the Divine existence, is as of an 
ellipse described around the two foci of love and severity ; 
realizing him as both Father and Ruler — as much, 
and as truly, the one as the other ; and so every act tinged 
from both streams of volition, and the harmonized result 
of the conflicting claims of both. 

There is just as real and just as much evidence of the 
existence of severity in the Divine nature, as there is of 
10 



146 VERDICT OF REASON. 

love. Nature declares it in all her earthquakes, tornadoes, 
torrents, avalanches ; Providence affirms it in shipwrecks, 
famines, pestilences, wars, and slavery ; History endorses 
it with her red pages, and the Bible declares it when it 
warns us of the "terror of the Lord," l and insists that 
' ' the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and re- 
serveth wrath for his enemies," 2 and sums up " our God is 
a consuming fire." 3 

If the world has a ruler, that ruler is God ; and, as 
Lord Bacon says, " I had rather believe all the fables in 
the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that 
this universal frame is without a mind." 4 But, if God is 
a Ruler, he must be an infinitely just ruler ; and an in- 
finitely just ruler must secure the happiness of his loyal 
subjects by protecting them from the acts and aims of 
the disloyal ; and that can only be done by severity, — . 
severity in restraint and punishment. Therefore, if God 
is the just ruler of this world, he must show his severity, 
and restrain and punish the guilty ; and this, although 
they be his children, and his heart yearns over them as a 
father's heart. So that, the reason of the case, when the 
entire character of God is taken into the account, is wholly 
against the supposition that God will somehow shield the 
guilty from suffering, and bring about universal happiness. 

And if the Universalist claims that God, having omnip- 

1 2 Cor. iv. 11. 2 Nahum i. 2. 

3 Hebrews xii. 29. 4 Essay, Of Atheism, 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 147 

otence, will constrain all his creatures to repentance, so 
that he can, as a Ruler, safely pardon, and make them 
happy, the stubborn fact of free agency is in his way. 
God has placed it out of his own power to compel men to 
cease to do evil and learn to do well. He persuades them. 
He entreats them. He accumulates the most urgent 
motives around them, if so be he can draw their volition that 
it shall run after him. But he never compels any man to 
repent. So that there are always just as many possibilities 
of thwarted omnipotence, in this respect, as there are free 
agents, any one of whom can hold out for ever. Among 
so many possibilities, there must be some probabilities. 
And Reason decides that, so far as she can see, there have 
been and are many such gloomy probabilities, — men living 
and dying "without God and without hope." Toward 
such ones, God's paternal nature must be constrained by 
his official position. He can not pardon them when they 
will not repent, much as he loves and longs for them. 

(c.) The only safe course on this subject, is, then, to 
turn to the Revelation which God has made of his character 
and intentions toward his children here, and see whether 
he there promises — or even remotely hints the possibility 
of his doing so — to bring all men to future happiness, 
because he loves them so much that he can not bear 
that they should suffer eternal death. What the Scrip- 
tures do say on this point has been made so clear in our 
progress thus far through this volume, that I have no need 



148 VERDICT OF REAS02T. 

to develop it here. It is sufficient to remind the reader 
of those two great classes of passages, which, on the one 
hand, assert that the persistent sinner " shall surely die," 
and, on the other, plead with men to repent, with all the 
earnestness and pathos involved in the loving heart of the 
Infinite Father, yearning over his children, whom he sees 
in dangerous places and going on to destruction, notwith- 
standing all that he can do to save them — " For why will 
ye die ? house of Israel ! ' ' and then turning sorrowfully 
away from the hopeless end, saying, " Alas ! if thou hadst 
known ! Oh that thou hadst hearkenod to my command- 
ments ! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy 
righteousness as the waves of the sea ! " 

There is something beautiful and touching, it must be 
confessed, in some of those suggestions which tender and 
loving hearts make in plea for mercy to all, from God's 
infinite love. One can not listen without emotion to 
Whittier, when he sings : * — - 

" I trace your lines of argument : 
Your logic, linked and strong, 
I weigh as one who dreads dissent, 
And fears a doubt as wrong. 

But still my human hands are weak 

To hold your iron creeds ; 
Against the words ye bid me speak, 

My heart within me pleads. 

1 From a late poem in the Independent, 



2T0 OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 149 

I see the wrong that round me lies ; 

I feel the guilt within ; 
I hear, with groan and travail-cries, 

The world confess its sin : 

Yet, in the maddening maze of things 

And tossed by storm and flood, 
To one fixed stake my spirit clings, — 

I know that God is good ! 

Not mine to look where cherubim 

And seraphs may not see ; 
But nothing can be good in him 

Which evil is in me. 

The wrong that pains my soul below 

I dare not throne above : 
I know not of his hate, — I know 

His goodness and his love! " 

But are not these other verses of a more truly Christian 
tone, which are surely not less sweet in their appeal? 1 

" When my dim reason would demand 
Why that or this Thou dost ordain, 
By some vast deep I seem to stand, 
Whose secrets I must ask in vain. 

When doubts distend my troubled breast, 

And all is dark as night to me, 
Here, as a solid rock, I rest, — 

That so it seemeth good to Thee. 

1 Ray Palmer's Hymns and Sacred Pieces. 



150 VERDICT OF REASON, 

Be this my joy, that evermore 

Thou rulest all things at Thy will: 
Thy sovereign wisdom I adore, 

And calmly, sweetly, trust Thee still." 

The one shrinks from pain and the thought of woe, and 
reduces God to the measure of his own feeling and action ; 
the other leaves all to God, — willing to be led by him 
into any darkness that can not be understood, and, yield- 
ing his own thought and wish to God, calmly, sweetly, 
trusts him still. 

These moral arguments, then, amount to nothing. They 
are mere assumptions. It can not be proved that the hap- 
piness of the redeemed becomes impossible, if any are to 
be lost ; as, if it could be, it would not prove that none 
will be lost. It can not be proved that the sole end of 
punishment is restoration, and so eternal punishment be- 
comes impossible ; and, if it could be, it would not prove 
that none will be punished eternally. It can not be 
proved that it is unjust to punish the sins of this life for 
ever ; and, if it could be, it would not prove that the lost 
will not persist in sinning for ever, and so for ever merit 
new punishment. It can not be proved that there will be 
a further probation in the next world ; and, if it could be, 
it would not prove that those who have misused probation 
here, will not misuse it there, for ever and for ever. It 
» can not be proved that the wicked will be annihilated ; 



NO OBJECTION TO THIS TESTIMONY. 151 

and, if it could be, that would be the very fearfullest 
punishment of all. It can not be proved that God's in- 
finite goodness will lead him to save men from future pun- 
ishment: he does not interfere to save them from the 
calamities which his laws necessitate here, and all the 
evidence of his rulership over the universe goes to prove 
that it is impossible, and so incredible, that he should in- 
terfere in the future world- — while his language of warning 
and entreaty in the Scripture^ makes it absolutely certain 
that he will not so interfere. 

There is, then, absolutely no valid objection of any sort, 
from the Scriptures, or from Keason, to break the force of 
our argument, as heretofore developed, or to modify the 
conclusion at which we had arrived, that there will be a 
fearful and eternal difference between the future of the 
righteous and the wicked. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SUMMING UP OF THE ARGUMENT. 

THUS, then, I sum up our argument. 
(1.) Reason is first and final arbiter on the ques- 
tion whether it is reasonable to believe that the wicked 
will be punished eternally. 

(2.) She decides that, alone, she can not grasp and 
settle so great a question, and needs help. 

(3.) She decides that she may expect that help from 
God. 

(4.) She decides that he has offered that help in the 
Bible. 

(5.) She decides, that, coming to her as the Bible 
comes, and such in itself as it is, it is reasonable for her 
to take its testimony, fairly made out on the question at 
issue, and — if it asserts that the wicked will be punished 
eternally — to believe that they will be. 

(6.) She decides that its testimony will be fairly made 
out when she takes it as a whole, rejecting nothing ; and 
interprets it honorably in its self-consistent, obvious, com- 
mon-sense aspect from the standpoint of its speakers and 

152 



SUMMING UP OF THE ARGUMENT. 153 

writers ; as a progressive record ; in which obscurity is to 
be anticipated (as to the young mathematician in the ' ' Prin- 
cipia " of Newton, — but not because it is false) ; and so 
interpreted as to favor God most, to win most the assent 
of all good men, and to be least tasteful to bad men, and 
safest for all men. 

(7.) She decides that the Bible, so interpreted, does 
reveal that those who die in sin will be punished for ever. 
The Old Testament affirms it, with all the clearness natu- 
ral, or even possible, to its time and circumstances. Christ 
asserted it uniformly, and with all the tender and solemn 
emphasis to be expected from his lips on such a theme. 
The apostles re-affirmed Christ's position, and shaped all 
their arguments upon it. All indirect testimonies con- 
verge toward the same result. So that it is impossible to 
make the Bible a self-consistent volume, unless this reve- 
lation of the future punishment of those who persist in 
rebellion to God, and die in sin, is taken as its voice. 

(8.) She decides that there is no objection brought 
against this view which has logical force enough to impair 
its validity, or, in any way, to forestall or relieve its im- 
perative decision. 

(9.) Therefore, she decides that the doctrine of the 

FUTURE ENDLESS PUNISHMENT OF THOSE WHO DIE IMPEN- 
ITENT, IS, IN THE HIGHEST DEGREE, AND ON THE SOUND- 
EST BASIS OF REASON, A DOCTRINE REASONABLE TO BE 

believed. So she makes the voice of the Bible her ver- 
dict. 



154 VERDICT OF REASON. 

And when she is pressed, on this side and on that, by- 
difficulties and objections, her reply is, I am not careful to 
answer thee in this matter, — this is a world where we see 
through a glass darkly, and necessarily know but in part ; 
and because you can ask questions which puzzle me, I will 
not therefore let go of those great fundamental principles 
which bid me to expect queries unanswerable, now while I 
yet cling fast to the eternal word of God. It is more rea- 
sonable for me to take the Bible and obey it, even with 
these queries unanswered, than to make myself eternally 
unsafe and wretched by rejecting it because of them, — 
only to throw myself upon a thousand others more torturing 
still. 

Is not this sound reason ? Will you not accept, and 
act upon it as such ? Will you not shape your faith and 
life by its decision ? 

" It is wise to make sure of eternal salvation in this life, 
and to risk nothing for the future. No advocate of a future 
probation has ever been able to make out the slightest 
probability of such a state. His moral arguments are 
mere assumptions. He assumes that the sin of a finite 
creature is not* great enough in the sight of God to call 
for endless punishment ; and, therefore he says, that God 
can not mean this when he threatens it. He assumes that 
God is too good to punish, and therefore he can not mean 
to execute the threatenings of his law. But all this is 
mere guess-work, — nay, it is sheer presumption. What 



SUMMING UP OF THE ABGUMENT. 155 

can we know of God's intentions aside from his declara- 
tions ? and, if you bring the theory to the Bible, what do 
you find there to support it ? Not one positive explicit 
declaration that those who die impenitent shall be finally 
restored and saved ; not even that vagueness of statement 
from which the ingenuity of criticism could torture a con- 
jecture that there may be another state of probation ; but 
the whole tenor of the Scriptures, every warning, every 
call, every entreaty, forbids that supposition. 

" And are you willing to take your chance of a second 
probation and final recovery on such grounds, and to throw 
away the certainty of salvation by abusing this probation ? 
Will any man in his senses take that risk ? " l 

I desire to speak with utmost respect of all who hold 
doctrines differing from my own. And it is without the 
slightest feeling of unkindness, or intention of disrespect, 
to any, that I beseech you never, for one moment, to en- 
tertain the idea that it is possible for you to be honest 
Universalists and consistent believers in the Bible as a 
revelation from God. Many — like Theodore Parker and 
Thomas Paine 2 — have already perceived and announced 
that conclusion. The day must come when all will do the 
same, "renouncing the hidden things of dishonesty, not 
walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of God de- 

1 Thompson's Love and Penalty, 195. 

2 I have already quoted Mr. Parker to this effect. See also Paine's 
Age of Reason (1st ed.), part i. p. 18, &c. 



156 VERDICT OF REASON. 

ceitfully." The world will be divided by a line — which 
has not yet been sharply drawn — separating between those 
who receive and those who openly reject the Bible as 
God's revelation to man ; when those who hold it will 
hold it in its obvious and honest sense, and those whose 
rationalistic tendencies lead them to withdraw from it their 
faith will launch out boldly upon the ocean of human spec- 
ulation, leaving the divine chart avowedly behind. Then, 
to believe in the Bible will be to believe what it says, 
about future punishment, as well as other things, to be 
true. 

But can there be any better thing for us all than that 
we should believe the Bible, and the whole Bible, and prac- 
tice all its teachings, which are able to make us wise unto 
salvation ? I urge this, not as being a discourtesy to, but 
rather the very highest recognition of, reason as the guide 
of life ; for I believe, with a great father of mental philos- 
ophy, 1 that "reason is natural revelation, whereby the 
eternal Father of light and Fountain of all knowledge com- 
municates to mankind that portion of truth which he has 
laid within the reach of their natural faculties, — revela- 
tion is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries 
communicated by God immediately, which reason reaches 
the truth of, by the testimony and proofs it gives that they 
come from God. So that he that takes away reason to 
make way for revelation puts out the light of both, and 

1 Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, Book iv. chap. 19, sect. 4. 



SUMMING UP OF THE ARGUMENT. 157 

does much-what the same as if he would persuade a man 
to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remote light 
of an invisible star by a telescope." 

Oh most merciful Father ! who art the Fountain of Wis- 
dom, and givest liberally to them that ask thee; who by 
the glorious ministration of the Spirit hast made unto us a 
clear revelation of thy will in the gospel of thy Son ; 
we beseech thee to pour into our darkened understand- 
ings the light of thy truth, and quicken our minds that 
we may rightly understand and duly value it, and frame 
our lives according to it to thine honor and glory; so 
that we may be delivered from pride, vainglory, and hy- 
pocrisy ; from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism ; from 
hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word and com- 
mandment ; from all evil and mischief ; from sin ; from 
the crafts and assaults of the devil ; from thy wrath ; and 
from everlasting damnation ; — through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen. 



THE END. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 



6 



